Awesome Honda Commercial

[11001001]

My dad sent me this the other day:

New Honda commercial in the UK.
Be sure to read first to get background then click the link.

Very important that you understand: 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 a full
engineering 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 Accords in the world. To
the of 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) are 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 are designed to start doing
their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit
weird in the commercial.
As amazing as this is, it's actually based on an earlier film from the
seventies called "How Things Move" by two Swiss self-destructing
artifacts artists (say that ten times fast). In that film, a similar
set-up with household objects goes on for thirty minutes with air jets
and fire and chemical reactions.



Here we go...

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html




I'm not sure about the source on the text above. That's exactly how I recieved it in my email.

[theuser]

That is the most amazing commercial I have ever seen. One thing looked really wierd to me though, when the wheels bump into eachother on the ramp, it looks like they stop, then accelerate up the ramp. Any way, thanks for making my day.

[scriptkiddie18]

heh nice commersial
still the only thing it needs is some music man
to chill thigs up a bit
dont u think so?

[11001001]

Originally posted here by theuser
One thing looked really wierd to me though, when the wheels bump into eachother on the ramp, it looks like they stop, then accelerate up the ramp.

Yeah, from what I can tell, it looks like the tires are weighted at the top and on the inside. They are then balanced so they don't go anywhere until they're bumped. Once they are bumped a little bit, gravity pulls the weight (heavier than the tire) downwards, thus rolling the tire up the ramp.

[AciDriveHB]

Yeah I was wondering about that, because after the second one hits the third one it just sits there... when I first saw it I kind of ddn't understand how the tire could stop while rolling up hill, plus that was after I just let the fact go that it looks like the tires don't care about how gravity should pull them back down the ramp. LOL, thanks for clearing that up!

Great show...
~AciD