Engineering (Honda)

Wow!  Shayne clued me into this today.  From Shayne:

For those who like everything to be precise!

Take the 2 minutes and click the site at the bottom....Have to tell the
truth...I watched it twice - wanted to be sure I didn't miss anything...

And you thought those people who set up rooms full of dominoes to knock
over were amazing. This film clip has 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. By the time it was
over, they were ready to change professions.

The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete
including full engineering of 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 six and only six hand-made Honda 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) is 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.

Click on the link below or copy & paste.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php

From Smoky

If you are like me and not using cable broadband, be sure to watch a second time to eliminate the buffer pauses.  It will run a second time automatically.  This is tres cool!

All I can say is....I wonder how they can get those tires to roll UP the inclined plane and do their thing?  Never was taught in the physics classes I attended.

slabman said:

All I can say is....I wonder how they can get those tires to roll UP the inclined plane and do their thing?  Never was taught in the physics classes I attended.

Click to expand...

Sure you were, there are 4 tires that roll, one heavy one that rolls into a lighter one, which then rolls up the incline to another light one which rolls SLOWER to another, which rolls EVEN SLOWER to the top.

Note: I'm not sure the first tire is heaver though

You can test this yourslef,  Set up the classic bycicle jump ramp (A sheet of wood on some blocks) and take your spare tire, Roll it good and fast toward the ramp and it will roll up the ramp (Slowing as it climgs) and fall off the top

I had to laugh when I read they had to try 606 times before they got it to work.  LOL!  I would love to see some video of the aborted efforts, especially if it included the cussing and sewaring that must have gone on.

The 606th take, however, is a work of art and is awesome!  ;D