In his most recent “Movie Answer Man” column for The Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert fields a question from Justin Toomey of Athens, Ohio rgearding Mac use in movies and TV shows. Toomey writes, in part, “You can sometimes tell who the “bad guys” are in a movie or TV show by what computer they use. For instance, on “24,” all the bad guys used PCs while the good guys all used Macs. Why do you think Apple always gets the plumb roles?”
Ebert responds, “Since many Windows machines look alike, Apple is one of the few manufacturers that can gain by product placement, which accounts for some of the Macs. It’s true that the movie industry and creative types in general prefer the Mac. The novelist Tom Clancy sends e-mails with this signature line: ‘Never ask a man what computer he uses. If it’s a Mac, he’ll tell you. If it’s not, why embarrass him?'”
Full article here.
Lame. That’s old news.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,52559,00.html
Ebert commented on this today. That was the point of the story, it seems. If you can read, that is. Some “journalist.” Talk about lame.
interesting…thanks for the signature.
It makes sense that there are so many Macs in movies when the majority of creative people on the planet use them anyway.
I know that Apple likes to see their stuff in films, but I wouldn’t go so far as to assume that Apple has to PAY everyone to include them as props in films.
Most major stars, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors etc, are Mac users already, so why not use something you know?
I saw an episode of Stargate, first season I think, where they’d taped a little square of black over the white apple logo on the G3 powerbook they were using. Odd. I seem to recall Sex and the City also has had the logo blacked out. Didn’t Apple pay them enough? Or has Stargate got a moral stand against product endorsement?
actually, they just cover the logo whenever they DON’T have permission to use it. It just so happens to be that a lot of shows will use macs as props cause they just look better. Next time you see a laptop on “Friends” chances are it’s a Titanium laptop (or Albook) witht the logo covered over.