New Rainier Beer documentary at SIFF

'Rainier: A Beer Odyssey' to show at SIFF

A new documentary will be showing at the SIFF that details the world-famous Rainier Beer advertising campaigns from the '70s.

SEATTLE - A new documentary detailing the world-famous Rainier Beer ad campaigns is set to premiere at the 50th Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) this month.

"Rainier: A Beer Odyssey" explores the iconic and groundbreaking Rainier Beer TV commercials that ran from 1974 to 1987. Filmmakers looked through more than 100 hours of ads and outtakes to share the story.

SIFF programmer Dan Doody and "Rainier: A Beer Odyssey" Director Isaac Olsen and producer Justin Peterson stopped by Good Day Seattle to talk about the documentary.

"My brother and I own a bar in Tacoma, Washington, and we have a little TV in our back room that we just play all the old commercials on loop. And we've been doing that every day for, like, I don't know, five years, maybe longer. And, Isaac was there one day with us and he goes, well, what happened to the original film for these commercials? We're like, yeah, that's an interesting question," Peterson said.

Olsen said it wasn't hard to track down the commercials but found them by accident. And a big focus on the ads was the Pacific Northwest.

"Well, the ads that, Terry Heckler and Gordon Bowker, pioneered for Rainier pretty much changed the way you think of advertising in general today, not just beer ads," Olsen said. "So it was big. It was a big change."

Doody remembers seeing the commercials during Seahawks and Mariners games while growing up in the Seattle area.

"They go into depth about how that one was made. And there's a really interesting story behind the kind of cut that was made, the invisible cut there. So, yeah, it was just one of these blasts from like pure Seattle nostalgia," he said.

SIFF is scheduled to run from May 9-19 at multiple venues throughout Seattle.

Check out the trailer below.