....wow...

April 18, 2003 10:19 AM

Remember the Honda advert? It was real. [Previous]
posted by Pretty_Generic (21 comments total)

WOW! WOW! WOW! I was transfixed by the commerical. What genius! What an amazing thing to put all that time & money into it when they could have gone the easy and cheap route and put some shots of a car going around a hilly course to some new techno music. Or made the whole thing falsely.
Hooray to Honday!
posted by aacheson at 10:37 AM on April 18, 2003

All the commercial needed was a cat being swung around by a fan.

Brilliant!
posted by DragonBoy at 10:49 AM on April 18, 2003

That is an amazing piece of work, even if they do almost lose the framing on the shot around the time that the seat back pops up.

I think I would've gone insane on the shoot, but as a viewer, I'm grateful for their efforts!
posted by baltimore at 10:51 AM on April 18, 2003

BTW, this link is more reliable, and quicktime to boot.
posted by baltimore at 10:53 AM on April 18, 2003

The article also doesn't mention Rube Goldberg, which is just ignorant.
posted by 2sheets at 11:06 AM on April 18, 2003

I'm also fairly amazed that the article did not mention Rube Goldberg, although Fischli is probably a more direct influence.
posted by kindall at 11:08 AM on April 18, 2003

Ah Dragonboy, but cats and fans aren't part of the Honda car!
posted by aacheson at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2003

The article also doesn't mention Rube Goldberg, which is just ignorant.

Uhh, no. It's an article from a British newspaper. They would mention Heath Robinson instead.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:37 AM on April 18, 2003

Ah Dragonboy, but cats and fans aren't part of the Honda car!

... Maybe not YOUR Honda...
posted by KnitWit at 11:38 AM on April 18, 2003

So ... if it's all real (and I was at the launch, where Honda promised it was) what stops the car at the end? It definitely brakes, you can see the weight shift. Perhaps it's son of Herbie.
posted by bonaldi at 11:47 AM on April 18, 2003

Fischli was much more ripped off than just a direct influence.

I assumed this was done by the same people as "The Way Things Go" when I saw it, felt a little miffed when I found out it was an "homage". At least they put the work in.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:53 AM on April 18, 2003

2sheets - not to derail, but don't ya know it will soon be illegal to mention Rube Goldberg without express consent? Maybe that's why that name wasn't mentioned...
posted by vito90 at 12:53 PM on April 18, 2003

The advertising industry has been stealing directly from avant garde filmmakers for years... Not much new here. I'll see if I can track down a few specific instances; I remember being given a list, but it's been two years or so since I last saw it.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:44 PM on April 18, 2003

The saddest part is that the whole thing is real, but we don't see it as real. We're so used to special effects, and CGI, that when we see something as stunning as this, we just accept it. When I first saw the ad, it never even crossed my mind that it was real.
posted by salmacis at 4:50 PM on April 18, 2003

Anyone know what the song is that starts to play at the end? I know it's not original to the ad because it (the exact same) was background to a flash game a while back.
posted by Aaorn at 6:09 PM on April 18, 2003

As impressive, the original vehicle was hand-assembled.
posted by stbalbach at 6:57 PM on April 18, 2003

Anyone know what the song is that starts to play at the end? I know it's not original to the ad because it (the exact same) was background to a flash game a while back.

Rapper's Delight -- Sugar Hill Gang
posted by LinusMines at 7:10 PM on April 18, 2003

Rapper's Delight -- Sugar Hill Gang

Or is it the original Chic Bass line? Can't remember the track because I keep hearing Grandmaster Flash (who also used it).

posted by jamespake at 3:59 AM on April 19, 2003

salmacis - my assumption that it was CG caused me to be even more astonished when I found out that it was reality, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:10 AM on April 19, 2003

According to this article, the advertisement was actually shot it two one minute halves, and then melded together when the exhaust pipe rolls across the floor. Now I'm confused. Is it two shots or one?
posted by arielmeadow at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2003

I agree luriete and PST, had they really not seen The Way Things Go?
'The idea for the advert derived partly from the old children's game Mouse Trap, and from the wacky engineering of Caractacus Potts's breakfast-making machine in the Sixties film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.'
posted by asok at 5:44 PM on April 22, 2003