From: McNee Fiona
To: John Armitage (E-mail)
Sent: 23/05/02 03:45
Subject: Extract from The Australian
Please find following an extract from an article in "The Australian" IT
section that I at least found amusing. If you think cybersociety might
find it amusing, please feel free to pass it on. PS "Secret Life of Us" is
a seriously rating show aimed based on 20-30 y.olds in Melbourne - think
This Life meet Friends but not really like either....!!
Fiona
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Movie-star Mac battles WinTel baddies
David Frith, The Barrow
MAY 21, 2002 IN the early days of black and white western movies, you
could
easily pick the baddies from the goodies: the goodies all wore white
hats;
the villains wore black. But the times, they are a-changing.
In today's brave new hi-tech world, you get to pick the difference by
the
kind of computers the characters use.
Today's movie heroes and heroines tend to use Apple Macs.
The baddies hack away at Windows PCs.
So reports Wired Magazine of the US, a tech-oriented journal with a nose
for
such matters, and a soft spot for the Macintosh.
Some cases in point, noted by Wired:
In You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan's cuddly, warm-hearted character uses a Mac
to
send email, while Tom Hanks' predatory, corporate type taps back coldly
on
an IBM ThinkPad.
In Legally Blonde free-spirited Reese Witherspoon uses a Mac iBook while
the
dull, boring hordes at Harvard Law have Windows notebooks.
In one scene in a lecture hall, Reese's bright-orange iBook stands out
among
a sea of standard black Intel-powered laptops.
In the Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise and other government agents
use
Apple PowerBooks; the fiendish villains, who get their just desserts,
use
Windows PCs.
In the Fox TV espionage thriller 24, currently a cult hit in the US, the
good guys all use Macs - a traitor in the ranks is spotted using a Dell.
And that's just the start.
Macs have made appearances in 1500 movies or TV shows - the latter
including
the Jerry Seinfeld Show as well as NYPD Blue, Spin City and Buffy the
Vampire Slayer.
Movies featuring Macs have included Independence Day, Home Alone 3, Mel
Gibson's Ransom, Ronin, What Dreams May Come, Meet Joe Black, The Siege,
The
Faculty, Jack Frost and Pleasantville.
In Australia, the sleek new all-white iMac - the model that looks like
an
upmarket desklamp - is turning up on All Saints.
Big Brother and The Secret Life of Us have also featured Macs.
It doesn't happen by accident, of course, or because set designers think
the
Mac is cute (though that certainly helps). Hollywood calls it "product
placement" and the whisper is that Apple is prepared to pay more than
others
to have the Mac in a starring role - on the right side.
Apple has a full-time manager at its Cupertino, California, headquarters
masterminding product placements.
Suzanne Forlenza has been doing the job since 1994 - her first big
success
was getting an Apple logo seen by the 79 million strong audience for
Forrest
Gump.
The logo appeared on a letter that informs Gump he's become a
millionaire
from investing in what he thought was a fruit company.
The company doesn't reveal what it pays to have Macs featured on screen.
Sometimes, according to Forlenza, it's done for nothing - she maintains
that
Mission: Impossible did a simple contra: the only cost to Apple was the
loan
of the Macs for the duration of the shoot.
Apple Australia's Myrna Van Pelt says the local subsidiary never pays
for
product placement: the deal usually simply involves loaner machines.
In some cases - All Saints is one - the production company has bought
the
machine, presumably at a better-than-retail price.
Some rivals snort at such claims.
Garrett Beauvais, a US marketing executive at chip maker AMD, says:
"Apple
Computer outspends all other PC companies in product placement and is
perhaps more active in the area than any other technology company
outside of
Microsoft."
Perhaps there's some sour grapes there: the Barrow doubts if any set
designer or screenwriter has ever requested an AMD Duron microprocessor.
And product placement wouldn't work if the Mac wasn't seen to be a chic,
desirable designer-age item - the very kind of gadgetry hi-tech heroes
must
have.
Compaq Presarios may be value-for-money, but chic they aren't. So,
whether
it's paid for or not, you'll continue to know the screen's good guys by
their Macs.
The villains, it seems, are doomed to an endless array of dull-grey
Dells,
IBMs and HPs.
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