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Taiwan-shot Mind the
Gap ad becomes YouTube sensation
Staff writer, with CNA
A year-end commercial for flash drives by a US-based maker of computer memory
products shot in Taiwan and focusing on sentimental memories has become a
YouTube hit, local media reported.
A Memory to Remember has attracted more than 500,000 views since it was uploaded
to YouTube less than a week ago, the reports said, adding that the location of
the British-style underground station featured in the film has become a hot
topic of discussion on travel Web sites and TV programs.
The location for the filming was in fact a studio in New Taipei City’s (新北市)
Linkou District (林口).
The 454-second commercial is based on a true story reported by the BBC earlier
this year in which a 40-year-old “Mind the Gap” warning for the London
Underground was replayed at one station so that the actor’s widow could hear his
voice.
The widow is Margaret McCollum, a doctor, and her actor husband was Oswald
Laurence, according to the BBC report.
The story was easy to recreate because it has wide appeal to people of different
ages, Kingston Technology Asia-Pacific marketing director Cynthia Yeh said.
Fifty-two professionals spent 84 hours building the set from more than 2,000
pieces of wood, 9,190 tiles and 104 liters of paint. The seven-minute
commercial, took eight days to shoot, Yeh said.
The music and lyrics of the English-language theme song, It was May, were
created by Taiwanese musicians.
“We hope the film will inspire sweet memories among the audience,” Yeh said.
In the advertisement, an elderly woman visits the London Underground station
every day to listen to the voice of her late husband in the “Mind the G ap”
recording.
One day, she hears a new voice in the recording and asks a station administrator
why it has changed.
When the administrator learns that the voice in the original recording was the
woman’s husband, he arranges for the recording to be put on a flash drive for
her.
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