Bloomingdale's Y2K Solution (online at http://www.apple.com/hotnews/features/bloomingdales/)
Bloomingdale's heralds the millennium with its customary panache, as New Yorkers and tourists alike take delight in the store's stunning 3rd Avenue windows.
The Big Apple hosts a visual treat, but the big show isn't on Broadway. Just ask the shoppers and pedestrians streaming past Bloomingdale's in eastside Manhattan. There, a galaxy of iBooks-and iMacs and PowerBooks running videos created with iMovie-celebrate the good life and ring in the future.
"Our theme is ŒWhere will you be 2000,' " says Bloomingdale's creative director Michael Fisher, who's thrilled by the crowd's reaction "There's so much happening in the windows, that once they catch what's going on, they stop in their tracks. People just stand there totally mesmerized-especially at night, because at night the screens are very bright and there's lots of mirror balls and tinsel and lights. It's really spectacular."
In one window the message ŒY2K you'll be out of sight...www.bloomingdales...that's the future' scrolls on two iMacs, which then go on to display the Bloomingdale's website. In another window, a mannequin sits in the lotus position as three graphite iMac DVs play another movie Fisher has edited.
ŒIt doesn't matter who gave the apple to whom...That's the future,'says a window with mannequins holding iBooks and flanked by iMacs.
Another window displays millennium toasting flutes and crystal: "It has a little champagne bucket and ice and stuff like that," says Fisher. "And on the ceiling there's a million mirror balls. And then there's a tinsel curtain, and behind that there's little flashing lights and two iMacs in that window that have images of mirror balls spinning and glasses toasting and champagne corks popping and bubbles overflowing, and then it goes, ŒYou will raise a glass and have a ball...That's the future.' "
Yet another window features fragrances-and the kind of personal touch that has endeared Bloomie's to generations of shoppers. It's a movie of Bloomingdale's people: "What I did was, I went through my department and a few other departments and I took video footage of peoples' faces and then we morphed 'em into one movie that runs on these PowerBook G3s," says Fisher. "The faces morph one into the next, into the next and so on in a repeat loop, and then when it ends, it goes, ŒWe predict you might forget a face, but never a fragrance...That's the future.' "
Michael Fisher's maiden iMovie: Bloomingdale's creative team works on the store's 3rd Avenue windows.
Fisher, who studied design at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, is a Mac user from way back-he has a Power Mac G4 and an iMac in his office, a Power Mac G3 at home and a PowerBook at his beach house. But he was new to digital video. Having decided beforehand to create all the movies that play continuously on the iMacs and PowerBook G3s in the window displays, he'd wondered how long it would take him. But that was before he opened the iMovie application.
ŒYou won't stop thinking about tomorrow...That's the future,'says a window with a graphite iMac supported by a number of translucent hands-all wearing different brands of watches.
"The thing that really amazed me was how easy it was to do this thing with iMovie," he says, still sounding surprised. "It was astonishing. Plus it's plug-and-play, and that was another great thing about it. We created these movies and loaded them on the iMacs and PowerBooks, and they repeat them over and over in a continuous loop-they just keep running. They'll be up until January 1, because these windows aren't so much about Christmas as about the future and New Year." And if he had concerns about being able to make watchable movies right out of the box, those doubts vanished the moment the movies started playing. The reaction has been gratifying, says Fisher: "Even people spilling out of the movie theater across the street stand and stare, like they're just dumbstruck."
Fisher, who designs more than 200 windows a year, sees himself working in a whole new way. "I'm surrounded by computers and cameras these days," he laughs. "There's not a pencil in sight. edit a movie that will be called ŒWhere will you be 2000: the making of the holiday windows at Bloomingdale's.' I'm trying to keep it down to three minutes. It's a little documentary that I shot with a Canon GL1-a great camera-and that I'm editing on my iMac with iMovie. I mean, it's the easiest thing, and the effects are really amazing. I'm really excited about this."
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