cigaweed

"This is an incredible engineering feat and very cool. Read the email
before you go to the web and look at the commercial.

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 six million dollars and took three months to complete,
including a full engineering team to configure the sequence. In addition,
its 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 down loaded
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 handmade 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 voice-over 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 a bit weird in the commercial."

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/hhonda-ad-300k.swf