This
is just way TOO cool a video. You have to see it to believe it (but be
sure to first read the text intro below).
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 wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are
sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.