posted 06-11-2003 05:30 PM         

New Honda commercial in the UK. 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
(holy
----!) 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
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 voice-over 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.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve T:
How did they manage to have the tires roll up the ramp???

---

wires probably or the whole room tilts/rotates with the walls giving the appearance to stay level.

With respect to the later, I saw how they filmed a Pepsi or coke commercial. The one where the guy walked over to the wall then started walking up the wall and started dancing on the ceiling. He was always level, the room just rotated.