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If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to
have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven't seen anything
yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these
images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you
see it. The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes
there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn't
work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up
time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to
achieve this effect. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took
3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the
sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time
that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make
enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives. However,
this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the
history of the Internet. Honda execs think that it will pay for itself
simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for
you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately
approved it without hesitation—including costs. There are only six
Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of
Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the
recording. Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls,
floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two
automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial
was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their
first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost
fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real
without any graphics manipulation. By the way, about the windshield
wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and
designed to start working as soon as they get wet.*
* I found this description with the video—I don't know if it is true. |