606 takes later, and it's a winner...
Posted: 2004-01-11 02:08am
From a forwarded e-mail:
...and without further ado, here is the ad!Subject: Fwd: real cool ad
You have got to check this out, pretty cool ! Don't know if you've heard about this but it's a great ad concept... 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. The film cost $6 million USD 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 6 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 abit weird in the commercial. Watch and see.
If I recall, they actually got it in one take, too. I believe it was called "The Way Things Go".