Posted April 27th, 2003 @ 03:07pm by Erik J. Barzeski
People everywhere keep talking about that Honda Ad. People everywhere keep saying "it's real!"
Uhhh, last time I checked, tires didn't roll uphill any more than they liked to stay still on an incline. They are, after all, round.
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Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 3:18pm #
"At one point three tyres, amazingly, roll uphill. They do so because inside they have been weighted with bolts and screws which have been positioned with fingertip care so that the slightest kiss of kinetic energy pushes them over, onward and, yes, upward. During the pre-shoot set-ups, film assistants had to tiptoe round the set so as not to disturb the feather-sensitive superstructure of the arranged metalwork. The slightest tremor of an ill-judged hand could have undone hours of work."
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/%5B...%5D/2003/04/13/nhonda13.xml
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 3:22pm #
The tires were weighted. Here's another article on the ad.
This was a rather popular topic on the Avid-L mailing list the end of last week. Some folks there who know a bit about filming :-).
The consensus seems to be that it's real. The consensus is probably influenced by the fact that at least one list member has worked with the production company that did the ad.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 3:29pm #
MO-MEN-TUM! 🙂
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 3:30pm #
Fair enough and good to know!
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 3:47pm #
606 takes 🙂
Apparently, the ONLY part that is CG is the rolling muffler, it needed an extra kick to keep rolling.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 4:43pm #
The muffler was CGI cause they could'nt fit the whole assembly into the set, so it connected two takes. (read it in an interview with the creators)
Had it been a case of there not been enough momentum to keep it rolling for so long, they would've just had it roll a shorter distance.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 6:00pm #
You guys may want to watch The Way Things Go, if you enjoyed the ad. This is the movie on which the advertisers based their commercial.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 6:12pm #
That Honda Ad
Here’s some discussion of the Rube Goldberg Honda Ad. I’d just assumed it was CGI…but Eric says it’s not.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 7:42pm #
I felt like I was watching a real life version of the Incredible Machine. Good stuff. Saw it a few weeks ago and haven't stopped doubting my eyes.
Posted 27 Apr 2003 at 9:25pm #
blah blah blah weighted tires blah blah blah
Posted 28 Apr 2003 at 10:29am #
Are you sure the muffler was CGI? The way I read it was that was just where they cut in-between the two takes.
Posted 28 Apr 2003 at 2:50pm #
Quality advertising
When it comes to ads, this one (requires Flash) is up there with Apple’s 1984. It apparently took 606 tries and is real. Thanks, Eric (who doesn’t believe it – I guess he didn’t read the article where it details how they put weight
Posted 28 Apr 2003 at 5:33pm #
*sheepish apology* Sorry, I've been testing the autotrack plugin in blosxom and it decided to ping this entry every time it was loaded. You have a flurry of spurious trackbacks from me. My (very, very) bad. Apologies.
Posted 29 Apr 2003 at 8:36am #
There is something wrong with the final moments of the ad. When the car is on balance the wheels are absolutely straight. As the car descends from the ramp, the wheels take a slight turn to the right.
Posted 09 May 2003 at 1:19am #
There's a person in the car. They turn the wheel 😉