In 2009, I shot a short film about a girl who tries to break out of a world where everyone is plugged into their headphones with no human interaction. A lot of people were excited about the concept of the film and volunteered their time to get the film made.
Then in 2011, Motorola and the Anomaly New York ad agency released their Super Bowl ad “Empower the People” with the same concept. The ending, in particular, is identical.
Both CNET and Engadget.com have since written features about the film’s comparison to the Motorola advertisement. I hope you don’t consider this spam. As indie filmmakers, we have no recourse but to write to blogs and message boards.
I only hope that you will please check out both works and decide for yourselves. We’re not suing anybody. We just want to screen in the court of public opinion.
Here is a link to the CNET article, which features both the film and the ad:
There are similarities. But it also doesn’t seem like any great stretch considering the ad was basically a response to Apple’s 1984 ad, with how Apple has basically become what they once fought against. With that in mind, several of the themes/imagery really don’t seem that unlikely to be hit upon.