Remember "Cog"?

About a year ago, I talked about Honda's famous viral commercial, Cog. When I showed Cog to my filmmaking friend Max, and told him that its complicated Rube-Goldberg-like chain reaction had not been done with CGI but had been shot as live action in 606 takes with a price tag of $6 million, his reaction was firm and unshakable: "I don't believe it. No way. Uh-uh." Not that I can blame him—that was exactly how Honda execs reacted, too!

And today, I'm glad to say I can show Max that Cog was a live action shoot. I found a four minute documentary showing how Cog was made, and it still blows my mind. As I've said before, Cog isn't simply a great commercial—it's great filmmaking, and on every level. Its initial concept, the ingenuity of the chain reaction's design, the perfect execution of its filming, and the sound... my god, the sound... just listen to the hum of that rotating metal piece! Amazing. Really, when people go to this much effort to film something, they deserve to have their work shown as far and as wide as possible.

Here's the four minute documentary on the making of Cog:

And, again, here's Cog: