Earlier this year I worked on a Honda commercial that featured hockey stars Nicklas Lidstrom and Corey Perry. ย In the spot, the athletes leave the sports arena and head to their Honda Pilot. ย Once inside, they are shocked to find hundreds of hats falling (as happens when an athlete scores a hat trick; 3 goals) on their car, out of nowhere. ย They deduce that the fans approve of their choice in vehicle, as neither of them had scored a hat trick that night. ย As a stinger, an octopus is the last to fall on their windshield, which apparently is some kind of inside joke.
Here’s the storyboards:[slideshow id=19]
This was pretty straightforward. ย I enjoy drawing athletes, due to the dynamic poses found in sports, but in this case it was more like drawing celebrities, since the drawings had to have a likeness, and that’s often challenging. ย I also enjoy drawing cars because they look fairly impressive in my current rendering style. ย I’ve had to draw the Honda Pilot on a few commercials, so I was familiar with the design.
But what was really interesting about this project was that I used Skype to communicate with the director. ย Since it was a new client, it was very helpful to use the video chat function to get that personal connection and gain his trust. ย And I also used the screen sharing technique to show the director my rough sketches as I was drawing them. ย That was surprisingly helpful since he was able to give me instant feedback. ย It can be stressful to have a director “looking over your shoulder” as you draw, but in the end it saves valuable time. ย So thanks to these newfangled technologies we were able to work really well together.
So here’s the finished commercial. ย The boards match pretty well, although I can see now that the director adjusted the angles to create a more voyeuristic/docu/candid feel. ย They may have intended this to seem like a “viral” video…I didn’t know they wanted that, but now that I see it, it works for the spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JybnJovu7XY&hd=1
