The Honda Ad

[bystander]

Has anyone seen the new Honda Ad ?

It very well engineered ad IMO, although the only bit I don't understand is how the wheels are travelling upwards?

It must have cost Honda a fair penny for the amount of airtime the ad requires to be seen in full...

 

[RussSchultz]

I bet the wheels were weighted on top. Tilt them over slightly and they'll move uphill trying to come to equilibrium.

 

[Sxotty]

That was crazy cool.

 

[DemoCoder]

Well, I'd have to watch it again, but if I remember correctly it appeared to me that one tire rolled down a long ramp gaining alot of kinetic energy, and then shortly up the next ramp collided with the others. If you knew the dimensions involved, you could calculate whether or not the falling tire had enough energy to displace the two tires (halfway up hill already) Rolling uphill is no problem if you have the kinetic energy to do it.

 

[Pete]

Great ad, thanks for the link.

 

[Tahir2]

Rolling uphill is no problem if you have the kinetic energy to do it.

If you see the ad you can kinda tell there wasn't the kinetic energy at all. It was just sooooooo fake and lets the ad down a bit (admittedly only a small amount).

I thought some of the bits of the ad reminded me of the Animusic 'Pipe Dream' demo.

Very nice if a lil' long for my tastes.

 

[bystander]

I bet the wheels were weighted on top. Tilt them over slightly and they'll move uphill trying to come to equilibrium.

After watching it again, I think it does indeed look like the tyres are weighted in some way. There's something about way the tyres move that gives it away, hard to describe though. I'll probably need to watch another time.

Very nice if a lil' long for my tastes.

You can imagine my surprise at seeing advert show in full on TV, it's more than a minute and a half long, so it can't be cheap to show. This was on inbetween the football and the grand prix, so I can imagine the airtime for the ad being fairly expensive.

 

[PC-Engine]

The tire part looks fake because the tires accelerate uphill after they're in motion. Gravity and friction does not cause a tire to do that. Even if 100% of the momentum is transferred to each tire you can't have acceleration only constant velocity and that's not even factoring in gravity and friction. My guess is that the tires are CGI.

 

[nutball]

You can imagine my surprise at seeing advert show in full on TV, it's more than a minute and a half long, so it can't be cheap to show. This was on inbetween the football and the grand prix, so I can imagine the airtime for the ad being fairly expensive.

Well it's got people talking about it (and not just here), so I'd say it''s money pretty well spent!

 

[8ender]

Finally, a well thought out, original commercial.

One of my biggest beefs as an up and coming marketer is the almost "in-bred" ideas and creativity im seeing in the marketing industry right now. Its like a marketing company comes up with one crappy idea and they rehash it into 20 different commercials till it becomes stale and almost unbearable to watch.

Think about that damn Taco Bell dog. Or more recently, that stupid Michelenos macarena knockoff song. They're up to two commercials now and the latest with that lady in the gym make me want to curl up and die when I watch it.

 

[nutball]

It's particularly notable for it being a car ad. Don't what car ads are like in the rest of the world, but the message over here seems to be "buy this car and get lots of sex from women!".

 

[MuFu]

The tire part looks fake because the tires accelerate uphill after they're in motion. Gravity and friction does not cause a tire to do that. Even if 100% of the momentum is transferred to each tire you can't have acceleration only constant velocity and that's not even factoring in gravity and friction. My guess is that the tires are CGI.

My guess is that alot of that ad is CGI!!!

MuFu.

 

[Randell]

Saw it on telly last night. Great ad.

 

[Crusher]

It's a nice Rube Goldberg machine.

 

[Basic]

I don't watch TV, and I don't know if it's showing here in Sweden anyway. And after downloading a bunch of clips from the honda site, I still haven't found it.

Anyway, CGI of some wheels rolling on a real background shouldn't be that hard to do. (Realy simple modelling.)

But just for fun, how would you do it in real life?
Think what a heavy, radio controlled car inside the tyre would do...

 

[bystander]

According to the Daily Telegraph the whole ad was real and performed in one clean take. Mind you it took them 606 takes in total to get it absolutely right...

About the tyres:

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.

 

[MuFu]

Sounds like somebody is taking the piss.

MuFu.

 

[RussSchultz]

About the tyres:

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.

I WIN!

 

[Pete]

The tire part looks fake because the tires accelerate uphill after they're in motion. Gravity and friction does not cause a tire to do that. Even if 100% of the momentum is transferred to each tire you can't have acceleration only constant velocity and that's not even factoring in gravity and friction. My guess is that the tires are CGI.

As little as I know about physics, and as little as I have thought about this, it doesn't strike me as impossible that the tires can seem to accelerate uphill. Firstly, gravity is acceleration--the mass of the weight inside the tire would accelerate down, and friction would transfer that motion linear to the inclined plane. Secondly, the tires make not even half a revolution, so it's sensible that a mass taped to the top of the tire would reach maximum speed when it's accelerating straight down, when the tire rotates 45 degrees.

606 takes, though--that must've taken some seriously patient people to their limits. The end result is worth it, though.

 

[PC-Engine]

The tire part looks fake because the tires accelerate uphill after they're in motion. Gravity and friction does not cause a tire to do that. Even if 100% of the momentum is transferred to each tire you can't have acceleration only constant velocity and that's not even factoring in gravity and friction. My guess is that the tires are CGI.

As little as I know about physics, and as little as I have thought about this, it doesn't strike me as impossible that the tires can seem to accelerate uphill. Firstly, gravity is acceleration--the mass of the weight inside the tire would accelerate down, and friction would transfer that motion linear to the inclined plane. Secondly, the tires make not even half a revolution, so it's sensible that a mass taped to the top of the tire would reach maximum speed when it's accelerating straight down, when the tire rotates 45 degrees.

Yes I was aware of that, however, I was talking about a scenario where no weights were used. At the time of my posting, it wasn't confirmed what technique the ad used and everyone had their own theories. I actually liked Russ's theory and thought it was one possibility and like you said it fits in perfectly with the acceleration uphill. However the balancing part would've been a very difficult aspect as was confirmed later which I thought wouldn't have been practical. So in summary if they hadn't used weights, the acceleration wouldn't have been possible without CGI or strings etc.