• by Danielle Oster , Yesterday

Iconic instrument brand Gibson has launched "Lost to the Future," an effort to find one of the more recognizable guitars in film history.

Gibson teamed up with actor Michael J. Fox to find the “lost” cherry red Gibson ES-345 guitar instrumental to the 1985 Hollywood classic “Back to the Future.” Fox dons the guitar in the climactic school dance scene while back in the year 1955 (despite the guitar not actually being released until 1959), playing Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit “Johnny B. Goode” to a befuddled audience.

According to a release about the news from Gibson, when filmmakers were working on the 1989 sequel to “Back to the Future,” they searched for the guitar, but it was nowhere to be found. Ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Robert Zemeckis-directed blockbuster, Gibson and Fox are calling on audiences to help find the missing guitar, which Gibson characterizes as “the most important guitar in cinema history.”

The scene did seem to have quite an impact on some budding guitarists.

“I’m really happy with the scene because it was an expression of my love for guitar and all the great players,” Fox said in a statement. “I didn’t realize the influence the scene had on people, John Mayer said, ‘I play guitar because of you,’ and Chris Martin said the same thing, and I am glad they took it further than I did, they went to the trouble of being really good players.”

The campaign centers around a call-to-action video in which Gibson tells audiences “We need your help” in the search for the missing musical piece of cinematic history. It includes an 800 number that viewers can call with any tips about the possible whereabouts of the Gibson ES-345 guitar used in the film.

If that seems like an approach out of the 1980s, there’s also a “Lost To The Future” website for submitting information. It includes a timer ticking down to an unspecified date (currently sitting at a little over four months, 15 days).

That video is just the start of the “Lost To The Future” journey, however. Gibson is producing an upcoming “Lost To The Future” documentary, directed by Doc Crotzer, who previously worked on bonus “making of” features included in “Back to the Future” DVD releases.

The feature will include interviews with “Back to the Future” cast members including Fox, Lea Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, and Harry Waters Jr., as well as musician Huey Lewis and co-creator/screenwriter/producer Bob Gale, and musicians that have been inspired by the film.

The hunt for the guitar has been active for quite some time already.

“I started searching for this guitar back in 2009 on my first day on the job at Norman’s Rare Guitars,” Gibson Director of Brand Experience Mark Agnesi sad in a statement.“After 16 years of searching, I’m so excited to get the entire guitar community together to help find the guitar that made me, and so many other guitarists of my generation, want to learn to play.”