A Legacy
Showcasing IBM’s History of Innovation Through Archival Footage
Man’s first trip to the moon. The world’s most powerful supercomputers. Groundbreaking advancements in cancer research. The world’s first notable artificial intelligence systems: Watson.
These accomplishments are but a mere portion of the innovations from our longest-running client, IBM. It’s been a privilege to partner with them for over 30 years through their journey rooted in the fundamental promise of technology.
IBM TechXchange, a conference bridging some of the brightest minds in tech, was the perfect event to develop a promo video capturing a bit of this rich history (with some deep help from the company’s archives).
A Timely Opportunity
IBM TechXchange is an international community that brings technologists and business practitioners together through local and online events for learning, sharing, and networking.
These regular opportunities to collaborate throughout the year lead to a global conference where IBM shares what’s to come with the company. Our client Graeme Noseworthy, the Technical Events Content and Experience Strategist at IBM, came to us with the perfect reference video that encapsulated the TechXchange conference’s spirit and IBM’s history.
You don’t just make a video like this because it’s cool. You need to find a specific application. TechXchange had the right audience for this video.
The main concept of the video focused on IBM’s innovation over the past century. At the core of that innovation is the people. This isn’t about IBM’s software or technology offerings, it’s about celebrating the people that do the work that leads to the big moments. Landing on the moon. Rocket launches. Space adventures. Curing cancer. Big things come from the years of daily work. We wanted our audience to resonate with these monumental discoveries and think, "These are my people. This is who I am."
We knew we had all the raw materials to mine, but needed to decide what we wanted to say and show. We kept coming back to the same answer: the people.
Writer and Director Tony Cope wanted to celebrate the people of tech and needed to talk like they talk. He watched a dozen technology TED talks to learn their language model, including broad picture language and ideas.
The scripting process was very collaborative between both Myriad and the client. Cope worked with our team and Noseworthy to create a video script that reflected this tech persona.
Then, Now, Always
Our goal was to connect the ‘then, now and always’ aspect of IBM through past, present and future footage. Digging into the IBM archives became a goldmine of source material to tell the story of how IBMers have changed the world with their innovations.
It all comes back to IBM. You can’t tell the history of information technology without referencing IBM.
The archives began in 1964, as a way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Thomas Watson joining IBM and document the history of the beloved company. To date, the archive is made up of records of IBM predecessor companies dating back to the 1890s, as well as photos, videos, building dedications, newsletters, packaging, ad brochures, press releases, original patent materials, marketing collateral, and a large collection of artifacts and IBM products.
In total, there are over 75,000 Holinger archival boxes full of history. We had a lot to work with.
There’s something about telling a story through archival footage that’s very fascinating. To match up things happening 100 years ago and current times makes for a fun contrast and visual storytelling. You may be limited, but you can find creative ways to tell the story.
Max Campbell, Reference Archivist at IBM, dug through troves of archival footage to find clips that connected the history of IBM to today’s direction. These clips included rare footage of events and people, including one of IBMer Janice Lourie, who was the first person to get a patent for software at IBM. This patent was a system connected to a loom to weave a particular pattern.
While Lourie’s clip was only used on screen for a few seconds, this history spoke directly to the “then, now and always” message that TechXchange wanted to carry throughout the film. The archives were an essential resource.
The Film
Art Director Emily Mormann combed through the archival footage provided, and found the big moments that helped us tell the complete IBM story. She helped to curate some of the visuals that were passed off to editor, Aidan Guynez. He focused on finding deeper connections within the narrowed collection of footage.
The edit needed to meld the new and the old, to highlight the spirit of innovation that continues at IBM to this day. This worked by finding similar movements in shots that could be parallelled in the film. Similar employees from current day were matched up with previous generations of IBMers.
I get excited about the poetic nature of the film and hope to inspire a lot of IBM’s audience.
Guynez kept digging to find visual links in the footage to tell the story through a variety of editing tools: speed ramps, zooms, match cuts, natural film emulation, and sound design. The combination of these post-production tactics made the video more dynamic and emotionally compelling for the IBM audience. A lot can be done with a well curated archive.
When I saw the first cut, I got choked up. There may have been a tear or two in my eye. Myriad got it right away.
Inside the Edit
After a few rounds of revisions, the client was very proud of the piece, but knew one more change needed to be made. There was a breakthrough moment when Noseworthy shared it with the General Manager of Technical Sales and Client Engineering.
“I love it, but…it sounds like you’re talking about us and not them,” he said. The word “we” was meant to be directed at the community but felt like we were talking about IBM. So we changed the word “we” to “you” and added a few words about the future. Revisiting this one word brought instant clarity to our message: celebrating people. The smallest change in script made the biggest difference.
When you work with Myriad, you’re getting a true partner. A partner that is willing to say no. That’s really important. They are willing to say what they believe in because they have the experience to back it up.
In the end, we accomplished what we set out to do; illustrate how the people of IBM are doing the work that continues to propel the company, and the world, forward. It’s a video championing the workers in tech, not just another ad about IBM. These are the people that are keeping the tradition of innovation alive each year at TechXchange.
Film Credits
- Producer - Drew Grimes
- Writer + Director - Tony Cope
- Art Director - Emily Mormann
- Editor - Aidan Guynez
- IBM Reference Archivist - Max Campbell
