Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!phayes
From: phayes@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Patrick W Hayes)
Subject: Cool NeXT marketing idea (in my humble opinion)
Message-ID: <1991Apr21.235700.9860@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Summary: Godzilla raytraced commercial
Originator: phayes@left.magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu
Sender: news@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: left.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1991 23:57:00 GMT
Lines: 35

How about this for a TV commercial:

Text fade in:  What some NeXT users wanted to show you...
Fade out.

BLAM!  Hit 'em in the face with the most awesome/intricate/beautiful
ray-traced film ever created.

The film could be created by us.  Anyone interested could do a few frames,
just for the fun of it.  People with labs could sick godzilla on it just
for the sake of trying out godzilla on something other than a factoring
problem.  It'd be fun to see something I did at home on TV, especially how
my few frames fit into the whole thing.  Then the frames could be compressed 
and collected locally by user groups or whoever and mailed to NeXT (to avoid
using the internet for commercial purposes) on optical disk (to be returned.)
You wouldn't need a color machine, even though it would be generating
a color image.

Would Ray.app/NFF do the trick or would we need something better?  Maybe
whoever makes Renderman could trade a copy with everyone involved for a short
plug in the commercial and/or a promise of some of our computer time for
themselves.

This would A) get people's attention, and B) show everyone how much we like
our machines.

Maybe they'd let people who contribute buy some stock (I know that's a risk,
but it could pay off.)

Oh yeah, and some purely NeXT generated music and/or sound effects could go
with it.

Now, any ideas for content? ...

Patrick Hayes