Certain commercials have 'it' - an ability to engage, entertain and inform - and this year, 'it' is Honda "Cog". The two-minute spot has emerged as a top Cannes contender by skilfully hypnotizing global audiences with pure performance-art-meets-precision engineering.

Part of a £6-million marketing campaign created by Wieden + Kennedy, London, and directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of Partizan Midi Minuit (also based in London), "Cog" neatly steps outside the conventions of automobile advertising. It presents a novel execution of a simple idea: quality engineering.

Individual car parts move precisely across the screen in sequence, nudging each other to create a chain reaction of movement. An elaborate array of disassembled rolling cogs, waddling windshield wipers and tumbling mufflers culminates in an Accord Wagon descending from a ramp in a slow, majestic fashion.

W+K copywriter Ben Walker says the main agenda for the commercial was to show how beautifully the car was made. "We felt the best way to do that was to take the car apart and show each component."

Accordingly, he and art director Matt Gooden sat down and sketched out hundreds of chain reactions. "We started out with loads of drawings, but we're not engineers, so a lot of things weren't possible," he says. "That's when you get a really good director involved."

Walker says they approached Bardou-Jacquet "because you can tell from his reel he has a problem-solving mind - and we knew this project would be one big problem."

Confronted with the challenge, Bardou-Jacquet understood that the only way to overcome it was to prep heavily for the shoot. He insisted on experimenting with different techniques over five months, gathering a team of specialists to investigate the pros and cons of working on a variety of events, including explosions and collisions of different pieces of the Accord.

"I had a team of sculptors, art directors and special effects veterans working around me constantly," he says. During prep, the team concentrated on small sections at a time, selecting the best chain-reaction sequences and piecing them together.

"We required a sequence of events that would be stimulating and different, in order to keep viewers captivated for a long period of time," explains Partizan producer James Tomkinson. "We needed more than just car parts continually knocking into each other over and again." In the end, the commercial featured 85 Accord parts.

The four-day shoot took place in Paris and required two separate continuous takes. The studio wasn't big enough to shoot the whole sequence in one go; in fact, the entire apparatus was two studio-lengths long, necessitating two days of shooting for each minute of the commercial.

More than 600 takes were required to capture the complete action - predictably, problems arose on the very first take. "One of the most difficult setups was the first shot, where you see the cog rolling along the wooden board," recalls Bardou-Jacquet. "The lights, the dust and the heat changes caused the cog to roll at different speeds, fall sideward or just not roll at all. It basically behaved differently on every single take."

Perseverance and extensive prep alleviated frustration and allowed for a focused attitude on set. "I wasn't sure how long [the production] would take or what the setup would finally look like," says Bardou-Jacquet. "[But] the closer we got to the shoot, the more knowledgeable we became." The end result incorporates slow and fast movements, and large and small pieces, to create the rhythm and simplicity of the work.

As to what inspired him during such a long production, Bardou-Jacquet responds playfully: "A bunch of boys playing with car parts for five months - what could be better? We created a commercial with humor, charm and tension. It's an honor to work on something so different."

CREDITS:
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London
Agency Producer: Rob Steiner
Creative Directors: Tony Davidson & KimPapworth
Art Director: Matt Gooden
Copywriter: Ben Walker
Production: Partizan Midi Minuit, London
Director: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet
Executive Producer: James Tomkinson, Partizan, London
Producer: Franck Montillot, Partizan, Paris
DP: David Ungaro
Audio Mixer/Sound Designer: Johnnie Burn
Audio Post Production: Wave Recording Studios, London
Editor: Bill Smedley
Editorial Company: The Quarry, London

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