.o0o.o0o.--Honda's "COG"--Absolutely Amazing--.o0o.o0o.

Honda's latest ad campaign for the accord was just recently released. It is a two minute film that was filmed in its entirety. It took 606 takes to get it done. The ad contains absolutely ZERO computer manipulation or editing.

click here for to view it

excerpt:

Honda's latest television advertisement, a two-minute film called "Cog", is like a fine-lubricated line of dominoes. It begins with a transmission bearing which rolls into a synchro hub which in turn rolls into a gear wheel cog and plummets off a table on to a camshaft and pulley wheel.

click here for the article

Being an ad geek, I found this just too amazing. I'm sure some of the Euros have seen it already. Its supposed to take auto advertising into a whole new realm.

i don't believe :eek:

nerd sphere.

I saw this before. Absoluetly amazing.

I thought there must have been at least a little computer manipulation, especially on the part when the tires roll uphill. Physics is saucily dope.

Oh, the Bongo Rock is a nice touch also!

The tires rolling upwards like they do seems slightly suspect.

But the ad is fucking amazing.

the tires made me think the same thing. I think theres a bit about the tires in the article. basically, its just weighted at the top, but still. 606 times for one continuous two minute take.

I thought the auto sensor wiper blades were one of the coolest. This ad isn't even planned to run in the states.

And my question was answered by the article:

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.

Holy shitpants.

I was about to skip this thread. I'm glad I didn't.

That was the coolest set up i've ever seen.

606 takes?

I hope they had champagne nearby becasue that would be time for a little bubbly.

I mean most Production Managers would pull the plug after 6 failed shots.

I think the sound is one of the major cool factors that help push it. Gotta love the "music" it makes. All the really subtle sounds some of the pieces make. Just insane.

Indeed:

When the final, 606th take eventually succeeded, there was a stunned silence around the Paris studio. Then, like shipwrecked mariners finally realising that their ordeal was at an end, the team broke into a careworn chorus of increasingly defiant cheers and hurrahs.

Champagne bottles popped. The cylinder liner had brushed its nose affectionately against the rocker shaft and the gear wheel cog for the last time. The interior grab handles and the suspension spring coils had done their bit. A classic was complete. Cog was in the can.

I've voice my opinion on this commercial several times... here goes another one.

1) Total bite off "The Way Things Go", by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, a short film that's 30 minutes long and knocks this commercial clear out the picture. Inspired by Mouse Trap my ass, gve credit where credit is due.

2) If you were a large corporation such as Honda, which of these options would you be more likely to pursue?:

______a) Spend thousands and thousands of dollars setting up an extremely elaborate chain reaction and wasting thousands of feet ($) of film on 600+ shots until you get it right just once.

______B) Spend much less money building a less elaborate chain reaction, having it run for maybe 20-30 shots, fixing errors with computers and CGI in post-production, then instructing your PR guys to tell everyone it's 100% real.

If what they say is real, I give them an insane amount of props (except for biting the idea and not giving credit), but for now I remain a skeptic. beer,

El Mamerro

Originally posted by SteveAustin

This ad isn't even planned to run in the states.

What genius decided on that? The ad is amazing, and I'm sure it would go over well here as a distraction from, as the article states, the normal car commercials with winding hills and clear skies.

Rube Goldberg

rube goldberg contest

Ruben Goldberg is one of the treasures of the American 20th Century. Goldberg was a cartoonist who developed a specialty that has become famous: Professor Butts' repertoire of brilliant ideas for machines that are ridiculously overcomplicated ways of accomplishing simple tasks.

Since the material is copyrighted, I can't show one directly on this page. But you can begin by checking out Professor Butts' design for a Self-Operating Napkin.

Over the years, Goldberg turned out a hilarious series of cartoons depicting Professor Butts' inspirations. (He was eventually awarded a Pulitzer Prize. And he was elected the first president of the National Cartoonists Society.) To posterity, though, these have become known not as "Professor Butts inventions" but as "Rube Goldberg inventions," and the term "Rube Goldberg invention" has come to denote any piece of engineering that resorts to maximal measures to obtain minimal results. (Some of them -- like Professor Butts' whacky device for opening a garage door -- may even have suggested the idea that some device be invented to accomplish that end.) And there have sprouted up a host of Rube Goldberg contests to pique the imaginations of students at all levels -- from secondary to engineering schools. (An irony is that may commentators -- as on the ANL site pointed to above -- have come to refer to the mildly mad inventor in Goldberg's cartoons as "Rube Goldberg," apparently forgetting that Goldberg's favorite character was Professor Butts.)

not feeling the car, but the ad is hot, click it if you haven't

yeah, I thought the car was kinda eh as well.

reason for no us spot:

"But not only is two minutes an impossible extravagance for a U.S. spot, a lot of machine-indifferent women will tune out the last 1:45. "

taken from

theres a mention of "The Way Things Go" on the video page, but thats from the guy that put it on his server.

machine-indifferent women ???

please! I know more women that would be into watching something

like that than men. It's not like it's a fishing show or nascar, it's art

in motion and I think women have a better apprecitation for the delicacy

and attention to detail that must have gone into it. Most men are like

Huh? Boobs sell me beer and baseball. Fucking Honda *click*

that ad is fucken cooooollllllll

Originally posted by SteveAustin

the tires made me think the same thing. I think theres a bit about the tires in the article. basically, its just weighted at the top, but still. 606 times for one continuous two minute take.

 

I thought the auto sensor wiper blades were one of the coolest. This ad isn't even planned to run in the states.

im 100% positive ive seen this commercial in the states..possibly during the superbowl

Found out a little more.

From the printed article in Advertising Age:

It was seperated into two continuous takes only because no studio was big enough to accommodate the entire sequence.

"Cog" won't air in the U.S. Eric Conn, assistant VP-national advertising for American Honda Motor Co.'s Honda and Acura brands, said the spot wouldn't work in America. "I don't have the luxury to use a spot with no feature benefits or to buy 120 seconds," he said.

I think what it really comes down to...is they don't want to pay a few million for the ad time. 120 seconds is a lot in the U.S.

the issue isn't 120 seconds.

However the issue is the two major forms of comercial billing. Let me explain...

In the standard senario, the network gets paid by the advertisers and

they in turn pay the content producers based on what slot they fill. It

costs more to advertise in prime time than late night so it only makes

sence that the network will pay a higher premium for that content.

It would be a waste to show this spot in a non-prime slot.

The other way it can work is of a greater benefit to the content producers.

Some networks will sell time to the producers and then the advertisers

pay the producer to be included in their slot. I've worked with a guy who

does a medium-tier outdoors show. Now he has to pay to get the show on TV,

but the advertisers (Mercury, Shimano, Coleman's, Chevy etc) pay him.

When you see an add that says 'Colsed captioning sponsored by:' it means

that that company is paying the television producer, not the network.

Honda could easily pay for some prime time slot if a network would agree.

They'd just have to produce some big special like 'Top 10 Film Car Chases'

and make their single add the focus of the first break. Then they'd arrange

to use more of their adds to fill the other slots (accura and affiliates).

It might be on North American Prime time before you know it.