Michal Marek In one week, two very interesting internal Apple videos from the 80s have been revealed. Both videos show the company's fight against its biggest competitor at the time – IBM. They came not long after the famous commercial 1984 and were intended only for Apple employees as a motivational tool.
1944
Michael Markman published a very interesting article on his blog about the background of the rare video 1944, in which Steve Jobs stars as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is an internal Apple video from 1984 that compares the release of the Macintosh to D-Day and generally points to a certain parallel between 1944 and 1984. The idea for this comparison was originally conceived by Glen Lambert. This short film is about the war between Apple and its Macintosh against the IBM corporation.
The Image Stream studio, in which Michael Markman worked under the direction of Chris Korody and his brother Tony, is behind the picture. Since 1979, the Image Stream studio has often collaborated with Apple in the field of marketing, and in 1983, for example, it participated in the introduction of the first Macintosh. In 1984, when Apple was preparing the Macintosh II, the creative team of Image Steam was asked to collaborate again.
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I called Chris in LA at the time and outlined our plans. A war film with footage of the Normandy landings (D-Day). Starring the Macintosh marketing team, Charlie Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler in Chaplin's satirical film Dictator) and Steve Jobs as Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself. Chris immediately started looking for a director.
Glen, Mike and I marched into Steve's office and pitched our idea to him. His eyes sparkled and the moment we got to him playing Roosevelt, I knew we had a winner. In Steve's binary universe, there were only ones and zeros. This was a clear number one.
Of course, Steve wanted to know how much it was going to cost him. We didn't think about it at all until then and didn't make a budget. We ended up talking about $50. I think we overshot the price, but Steve approved. It was an incredibly quick deal and we sold something that wasn't ready for a long time.
Glenn and I discussed getting a professional voiceover for F. Roosevelt, but when we brought it up in front of Jobs, he jumped right in and said he'd do it himself.
Then came the hard work around. We had to figure out how to make it all happen, and lawyers were trying to secure the rights to the character of Adenoid Hynkel. Chris found a young, fresh out of college filmmaker named Bud Schaetzle. Bud had his own production team, High Five Productions, with predatory producer Martin J. Fischer at the helm, and won some accolades for country music videos for Garth Brooks and The Judds. We took advantage of their steep rise and certainly helped them in it too.
Note: There is another interesting reference in the film. In the 50s, "Mac" was a well-known nickname for the famous American general Douglas MacArthur, who also played a big role during the Second World War, in which the film "1944" is set.
Blue Busters
A week after the short film 1944 another rare internal video called Blue Busters has surfaced. This is a parody video clip on the theme of the well-known movie Ghost Busters with altered lyrics that correspond with the content of the clip. This video isn't exactly new, an edited version featuring Steve Wozniak has been circulating the internet for some time, the server Network world however, he published its unedited version, where Steve Jobs also appears briefly in two sequences.
In the video clip as well as in 1944 Apple demonstrates an effort to hack the "blue" corporate world of IBM. Despite its rapid rise, however, Apple has only partially succeeded. The consequence was mainly the very high price of Macs at the time and the lack of software. Steve Jobs can be found in the clip at 3:01 and 4:04, Steve Wozniak at 2:21.
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Beauty :-)))))))))))))))))