After 606 takes, no special effects or CGI, the resulting sequence is very impressive. Thinking of all the parts that are involved and getting everything to work precisely, it's amazing.
If you haven't seen it already, take a couple of minutes to check it out. I recommend reading the full article linked below to appreciate the effort put into this.
Honda TV Ad - "Cog" (faster than the Honda site):
http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html
Original Ad @ Honda's website:
http://www.honda.co.uk/newcars/accord100k.html
Lights! Camera! Retake! @
telegraph.co.uk
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.