>Read the story first (it's long, but worth it), then watch the video.

It's

>absolutely amazing, and appeals to the engineer in all of us. If you

can't

>take the time to read the background, just watch the video: [

>

>Background

>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.

>

>On the first 605 occasions something small, usually infuriatingly

minute,

>went just slightly awry and the whole delicate arrangement was

wrecked. A

>drop too much oil there, or here maybe one ball-bearing too many

giving a

>fraction too much impetus to the movement. Whirr, creak, crash, the

>entire, card-house of consequences was a write-off and they had to

start

>again.

>

>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 - ú16,495

to

>you, guv'nor, or ú6 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.

>

>Utter silence, a check that the lighting is just right, and

"action!".

>Scores of grown men hold their breath as the cameras roll. An oil can

is

>tipped and glugs just enough of its contents on to a shelf that has

been

>weighted with a Honda flywheel. Some valve springs roll into the oil

>and are slowed to a pace perfect to make them drop into a

cylinder

>head assembly.

>

>If all these technical names are confusing, that is partly the point.

The

>advertisement was designed to show motorists all the fiddly little

bits

>of engineering that go into the modern Honda. The result, in this film

at

>least, is something approaching mechanical perfection and a bewitching

>aesthetic. As car adverts go, it certainly beats the

"Nicole!

>Papa!" school of commercial.

>

>If nothing else, Cog is a welcome departure from the generality of

car

>advertisements that feature winding-road landcapes, empty highways

and

>clear blue skies. The absence of people from the commercial at least

saved

>Honda having to make any regional alterations.

>

>It will be able to be shown everywhere from Japan to South America,

>Finland to the Maldives, without any more alteration than perhaps a

>change of the closing voiceover, currently delivered by laid-back

Garrison

>Keillor, the American author, who announces: "Isn't it nice when

things

>just work?"

>

>Cog looks certain to become an advertising legend and part of its

allure

>is the seemingly effortless way the relay of parts slide and touch

and

>roll with such apparent ease. The reality of the film's production

was

>slightly different. It was, by most measures of human patience, a

>nightmare.

>

>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.

>

>The bigshots at Honda's world headquarters in Japan, when shown Cog

for

>the first time, replied that yes, it was very clever, and how

impressive

>trick photography was these days. When told that it was all real,

they

>were astonished.

>

>One of the more striking moments in the film is when a lone

windscreen

>wiper blade helicopters through the air, suspended from a line of

metal

>twine. "That was the first and last time it worked properly," recalls

Tony

>Davidson, of the London-based advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy. "I

>wanted it to look like ballet."

>

>After that, a few yards and several ingenious connections down the

>assembly line, another pair of windscreen wiper blades is squirted by

an

>activated washer jet. Because Honda wipers have automatic sensors that

can

>detect water, they start a crablike crawl across the floor. It is as

>though they have come to life.

>

>As take 300 led to 400 which led to 500, a certain madness settled on

the

>crew. Rob Steiner, the agency producer, started talking about "our

>friends, the parts", but in the slightly menacing tone of a primary

school

>teacher discussing her charges at the end of a trying day. Some

workers on

>the film went whole days without sleep and had to be asked to stay

away

>from the more delicate parts of the assembly. Others started to have

bad

>dreams about throttle activator shafts and bonnet release cables.

>

>When things were going wrong - a tire that kept trundling off to the

left,

>or a rocker shaft that kept toppling over like a tipsy cyclist - the

>production lads on the shoot would start grumbling that "the parts

are

>being very moody today".

>

>Commercial makers are often accustomed to working with human prima

donnas

>but no Hollywood starlet, no footballing prodigy or showbiz celeb,

was

>ever as troublesome and unpredictable as the con rods and pulley

wheels

>and solenoids that Davidson, Steiner and Co had to work with.

>

>Towards the end of the production, Olivier Coulhon, the first

assistant

>director, had spent so many hours in the darkened studio that his

skin

>had turned a luminous green and his eyes had sunk deep into his

Gallic

>cheeks.

>

>Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, the commercial's director, kept puffing out

his

>cheeks and whinneying, a note of deranged despair twitching at the

corners

>of his mouth. Asked how long he had been working on the commercial,

he

>gave a high-pitched giggle and replied: "Five years? Or is it eight?"

It

>felt that long.

>

>Two hand-made pre-production Accords - there were only six in

existence in

>the entire world - were needed for the exercise, one of them being

ripped

>apart and cannibalised to the considerable distress of Honda

engineers. By

>the end of the months-long production, the film had used so many

spare

>parts that two articulated lorries were required to take them away.

>

>The idea for the advert derived partly from the old children's game

Mouse

>Trap, and from the wacky engineering of Caractacus Potts's

>breakfast-making machine in the Sixties film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

>

>The corporate suits at Honda liked the idea immediately, despite the

high

>costs of production and the fact that it was more than twice as long,

and

>therefore twice as pricey, as normal car ads.

>

>The two-minute version of the ad ran for the first time during the

>Brazilian Grand Prix, and brought pubgoers across the nation to a

>wide-eyed speechlessness after the Manchester United v Real Madrid

game.

>

>"It was a painstaking process, a tough experience," says Honda's

>communications manager Matt Coombe, recalling the making of Cog. Some

of

>the original ideas, such as one stunt involving an airbag, had to be

>dropped owing to a shortage of new Accord parts or simply because

they

>were too hard to set up. And on some takes the process would go

perfectly

>until agonisingly close to the end.

>

>"It was like watching a brilliant footballer weaving his way the whole

way

>through a defending team's players, and then shooting wide right at

the

>end," says Tony Davidson.

>

>The crew resorted to placing bets on which part of the sequence would

go

>wrong. Invariably it was the windscreen wipers.

>

>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 care worn 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.

>