A couple of years ago when this was made, a UK buddy sent it to me
via a promotional DVD Honda made of this advertisement, including a
"making of" film and a lot of other information about the event.
Truly a stunning project!
Godfrey
On Apr 6, 2006, at 10:55 AM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
I received the following link and message from my uncle. I don't
know how
accurate his comments are, but the ad (requires Flash) is well worth
seeing. A fast connection may be helpful.
Shel
==========================
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php
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 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) 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.
