“Honda Mousetrap Ad”:http://multimedia.honda-eu.com/newcars/300k_player.swf. This is one of those rare email forwards that is actually worth passing along. Honda Europe designed a fascinating mousetrap-like ad from Honda parts. The result is incredible to watch. Read the details and then click the link below. “More info”:http://multimedia.honda-eu.com/accord/index.html at the Honda (UK) Accord site. (via my mother-in-law)

There are NO computer graphics or digital tricks in the film you are about to see. Everything you see really happened in real time, exactly as you see it. The film required 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.

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 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…about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start functioning automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit odd in the commercial.

As amazing as this is, the commercial is actually based on an earlier film from the 1970s called “How Things Move” by two Swiss self-destructing artifacts artists.

P.S. Some sharp-eyed folks claim that tires rolling UPHILL necessarily require computer-generated effects. Not so. The sequence where the tires roll up a slope looks particularly impressive but is very simple. There is a weight [in each] tire and when the tire is knocked, the weight is displaced and in an attempt to rebalance itself, the tire rolls up the slope.