Composition in a New Genre
With this new project, I hope to illustrate the influence movies have had on the car culture and the auto industry. For this particular assignment, I will focus on the DeLorean from Back to the Future. When the first movie came out in 1985, an association with the DeLorean was instantly created. It’s hard to think of the movie and not think about the DeLorean, as well. When talking with a few DeLorean owners, they all mentioned how much attention the car gets when they bring it to car meets or when they’re just driving it on the streets. This same kind of attention would’ve been there regardless of the movie. But while people might’ve been attracted to the car because of its completely uncovered, stainless steel exterior and gullwing doors before, it now is the center of attention for a different reason, and that reason is because it was the time machine in the movies that everybody loves. The car was more desireable now. According to the Huffington Post, “one of the original DeLorean DMC-12 cars used as time machines in the "Back To The Future" movie trilogy was put on auction and sold for a high bid of $541,000” (“DeLorean Sells For $541K”, 2011). (To put that in perspective, a normal DeLorean can be bought for as low as $30,000 now). Lauren J. Riley, a DeLorean owner, says, “Having a DeLorean is like 5 percent being a rock star. Back to the Future definitely helped the car rise above its merits” (Chang, 2008, p. 6). All of the DeLorean owners I interviewed all bought their cars because of the movie. When asked about how people react to seeing a DeLorean on the streets, everyone said people go crazy over it. “Just last week I had a guy stop me on the way to work to get a picture of the car and two different cars take pictures on the way home all on the same day. People love it” says LightningTH, “One delorean will turn heads, two deloreans will slow
traffic, any more and traffic stops”. Yellowsubtab receives similar attention in his DeLorean: “You hear people scream, people break out their phones and cameras and no one is shy to give you a thumbs up, honk or come up and talk to you when you step out of it”. As exotic as the car looks, it definitely owes some of its attention to the movies. My new genre will be appropriate for my intended audience of movie fans and car enthusiasts because it will contain aspects which appeal to both groups while also showing how the two can be interrelated. The movies have created this interrelation by converting a car that car fans enjoy into a movie prop that cinephiles enjoy. “The sports car [DeLorean Motor Company] produced is an antique now, anachronistic, but its role in the three Back to the Future movies has turned it into a beloved icon for car nuts, film buffs, and fans of flux capacitor jokes” (Suddath, 2012). My new genre will be a car advertisement, or in this case, two advertisements. Both of them will be for the DeLorean DMC-12. One commercial will be one that would’ve aired pre-1985, before the first movie came out. The second commercial will be one that would’ve aired post-1985, after the first movie came out. The first commercial have the car as it appears in the image below:
There’s nothing special about it. It just shows the car by itself like in any other normal car ad. The second commercial will show the car as it appeared in the movies:
This time, the car is covered in all of the time machine pieces. There are many other signature elements associated with the movies that could be used in the commercials to advertise the car. For example, in the first one, the spokesperson would be some random DMC employee. In the second one, it would be either Michael J. Fox or Christopher Lloyd as their respective characters. When people see Marty McFly in his red future-jacket and auto-lacing Nike’s or Doc Brown in his white lab coat, they’ll understand the reference. There are so many associations the movies have created that extend beyond just the car and thanks to the films, they all could be used to advertise it since it now appeals to the general public. Even Doc Brown’s catchphrase is immediately recognizable and could be used in the post-movie commercial as well like in this picture:
The DeLorean in it’s time machine form has even been used in commercials before. The company Phones 4u used it to advertise that “whatever the future brings, [they’ll] find the right phone for you” (Phones 4u, 2014). So if the DeLorean and elements from Back to the Future can be used to sell other products, the same can be used to sell the car itself.
References
Chang, R. S. (2008, April 6). Ask me about my flux capacitor. New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved from
http://0search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/897787151/pageviewPDF/C7F0173 10B5B40EAPQ/1?accountid=14608
DeLorean Sells For $541K: 'Back To The Future' Car Auctioned. (2011, December 27). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/delorean-sells-for-541k-backto-the-future_n_1171549.html
Phones4U, (2014, July 17), Welcome to the #FutureYou - Phones 4u. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UucLMljiDHg.
Suddath, C. (2012, April 19). The deLorean's time leap. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-04-19/the-deloreans-time-leap