Berger Paint TV commercial

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"This complex sequence by Robert Abel and Associates was a 180-degree departure from the live-action footage of satisfied customers that was standard fare at the time. The first TV spot for this European firm, the Berger ad had almost no dialogue or narration but instead used gymnastic, movement-generating techniques including rear-projection, animation, slit-scan, and streak photography. As Abel described the piece, the “background is a surrealist plain formed of the [Berger] system’s color chips. A ‘sun’ is transformed into a globe and then a multicolored ball. And a rotating cube has sides which constantly ‘repaint’ themselves to show various wall treatments.” Despite the abstract approach, the message of color and the transformative potential of paint was very clear. The ad, which ran in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland during 1977, achieved “streaking” photography through Luminetics, a multipleexposure process that captures changes in form, direction, or speed onto a single piece of film."—Louise Sandhaus, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design, 1936-1986