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Thread: This is kinda cool...

  1. #1
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    i guess it took 606 takes to get this right...

    http://onlinetonight.net/cog/

  2. #2
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    "Six hundred and six takes it took, and if they
    had been forced to do a 607th it is probable,
    if not downright certain, that one of the film
    crew would have snapped and gone mad.

    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. All the
    parts are from the new Honda Accord - £16,495 to
    you, guv'nor, or £6 million if you want to pay
    for the advertising campaign. And what an amazing
    ad campaign it is, too.

    Back on Cog, things are still moving, in a what-
    happened-next manner redolent of "there was an old
    woman who swallowed a fly". With a ting and a ding
    of metal on metal, a thud of contact and the
    occasional thwock, plop and extended scraping sound,
    the viewer watches as individual, stripped-down
    parts of car roll into one another and set off
    more reactions.

    Three valve stems roll down a sloped bonnet. An
    exhaust box is pushed with just enough energy into
    a rear suspension link which nudges a transmission
    selector arm which releases the brake pedal loaded
    with a small rubber brake grommit. Catapult! Boing!
    On goes the beautiful dance, everything intricately
    balanced and poised. Nothing must be even a
    sixteenth of an inch off course or the momentum
    will be lost.

    At one point three tires, 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.

    Filming was done over four near-sleepless days in
    a Paris studio, after one month of script approval,
    two months of concept drawings and a further four
    months of development and testing. One of the more
    surprising things about the ad is that it was not
    a cheat. Although it would have been much easier
    to fiddle the chain of events by using computer
    graphics, the seesaw and shunt of events really
    did happen, and in one, clean take.

    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."

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