Honda car commercial

[Otherguy Overby]

: Read before viewing the link!

 

You thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominos to knock over  were
amazing...

There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film.

Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very
minor,  didn't work.

They would then have to set the whole thing up again.
The crew spent weeks shooting night and day.

By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions.
The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete
including full engineering of the sequence.

In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda  airs the film on
British television, they're shelling out  enough dough to keep any one of us
in clover for a lifetime.

However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet
history.

Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free
viewings"

Honda isn't paying a  dime to have you watch this commercial!).
When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it
immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.

There are six and only six hand-made Honda Accords  in the world To the
horror of Honda engineers,  the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make
the film.
Everything you see in the film (aside from the  walls, floor, ramp, and
complete Honda Accord)  is parts from those two cars.

The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda
executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics
have gotten.

They fell off their chairs when they found out  it was for real.

Oh. and about those funky windshield wipers.
On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and re designed
to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It
looks a bit weird in the commercial.

click here http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php
-------------------

Enjoy!
Otherguy.

[Justin]

Waaaaaaay old, but still very cool.

[Harold Tuttle]

http://dixi.blogter.hu/?post_id=35851

[...has left the building.]

Honda rules.

[Lo.Com.Denom]

On the first 605 takes, something, usually very
minor,  didn't work.

:/ Yeah, the laws of physics were finally broken on the 606th take. Ever notice how the car wheels roll uphill with enough energy to knock the next wheel along [!], but not back downhill afterwards? There are a couple of instances like that. Cool ad, but definitely not "real".

[brimic]

http://dixi.blogter.hu/?post_id=35851

I'll have nightmares for weeks after seeing that one.

[BrokenPaw]

Yeah, the laws of physics were finally broken on the 606th take. Ever notice how the car wheels roll uphill with enough energy to knock the next wheel along [!], but not back downhill afterwards? There are a couple of instances like that. Cool ad, but definitely not "real".

Actually, LoCom, they explained that.  The tires have weights mounted inside them, up at the top, and are very carefully balanced.  Once they are nudged, the weights move toward the bottom.  Even though the tire itself is rolling uphill, the center of mass of the system is moving downward, and physics is preserved.

-BP

[Lo.Com.Denom]

Still don't buy it. It would take an awful lot of weight to move them up a slope like that, even if you could ballance them correctly. And what about the exhaust silencer that rolls over and over, across the floor? It would have to have a motor inside it, surely. And the forrest of unconnected speakers underneath the windshield? The small tube with enough weight to lower the two door handles? The windshield wipers that crawl neatly across the floor, rather than thrashing around aimlessly? The rod which spirals down the coil spring and sparks a battery to complete a circuit, even though the other end of the spring isn't attached to anything?

Assuming all this could be done -- why bother? CGI would be indistinguishable from the real thing and nobody would be any the wiser, unless they were there in person. Maybe I'm just monumentally cynical, but when advertisers make these sorts of claims, I have to question them (no offense to anyone who works in advertising).

"Noooo, it's all going to be real, Mr. Honda... Six million dollars, that's right. (sotto voce) Fire-up the laptop, Dave -- we've got a live one..."

[BrokenPaw]

Assuming all this could be done -- why bother?

Are you an engineer?  If you're not, that's probably why you don't understand.  Engineers tend to be the sort who never got enough of legos and tinker toys and erector sets when they were kids, so they like to do stuff purely for the sake of doing stuff.

Example:  The Linux operating system was initially written by a guy who basically wanted to see if he could do it.  There was no specific need; he could have used something that already existed, but he wanted to build his own.  This is the engineering mindset.  Now, Linux has grown into something that, while not as big as Microsoft, is big enough to put a pain in MS's Server OS sales department's arse.

There doesn't have to be a need.  There just has to be a desire to do something.  

There's no need to paint actual pictures and sculpt actual sculptures, either; you could paint a pic on photoshop and print it, after all, and from a few feet away no one could tell the difference.  You could build a 3-D model on a computer and have it fab a wax blank for casting...and no one would know.

So why bother with any kind of art?  Computers can do anything, after all.

-BP

[mtnbkr]

BrokenPaw "gets it".

so they like to do stuff purely for the sake of doing stuff.

So true and so sad.  I can't leave anything alone...

Chris

[BrokenPaw]

BrokenPaw "gets it".

That's because BrokenPaw's an engineer, too.  My ip-address geolocation app didn't need to have an openGL-rendered globe with satellite imagery overlaid and the ability to grab it with the mouse like a trackball and turn it around in any direction you wanted...it could have been a cylindrical-projection map with dots on.  But the rotatable globe had cool-factor that a flat map didn't.  So I wrote the globe code.

I'll be damned it every project at home doesn't get some engineering cool-factor worked into it somehow.  Makes BrokenMa roll her eyes, but since my flights of fancy usually only make more work for myself, and not her, she smiles serenely and lets me dig myself in deeper.  That's a good woman, right there.

-BP

[mtnbkr]

Makes BrokenMa roll her eyes, but since my flights of fancy usually only make more work for myself, and not her, she smiles serenely and lets me dig myself in deeper.  That's a good woman, right there.

SWMBO gives me the same response.

Lately, her poor eyes are about to burn out her eyesockets as I come up with many ways to "improve" or new car.

Chris

[Lo.Com.Denom]

No, no -- I "get" why an engineer does the things he/she does. Nothing I admire more than someone with an inventive streak and the will to make something better than it was before. Something I strive for myself -- however ham-fisted the end result might be.

But this ad wasn't done by engineers working for the love of creation -- it was done by an Advertising agency for a cool six million dollars. To sell a product.

There's no need to paint actual pictures and sculpt actual sculptures, either; you could paint a pic on photoshop and print it, after all, and from a few feet away no one could tell the difference.  You could build a 3-D model on a computer and have it fab a wax blank for casting...and no one would know.

That's my point exactly. CGI is cheaper and easier than doing it for real. Advertising agencies don't care about artistic merit or lofty ideals -- they care about making their client happy, by selling their product for them.

But my point wasn't an attack on engineering, or art in the first place. My point was that there's somethin' not right about that there rollin' muffler!;)

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/hondacog.asp