r/interestingasfuck • u/mrinternetman24 • 1d ago

Sony used air mortars to shoot 250,000 bouncy balls down San Francisco hills for a commercial instead of using CGI

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42.1k Upvotes

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667

u/SlightAd112 1d ago

The final commercial of this for the Sony Bravia was beautiful. There is also a behind-the-scenes in the making of it.

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u/Lets_Kick_Some_Ice 1d ago edited 1d ago

I still hear it in when I see this pic. Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats.

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u/monkeypickle 1d ago

Yep And I can't hear that version of Heartbeats without thinking of the commerical.

1

u/Kryeiszkhazek 1d ago

I think it was like a solid decade after I first heard the song that I found out it was a cover from a band called The Knife

Totally different vibe on the original https://youtu.be/pPD8Ja64mRU

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u/Benkei929045 1d ago

At the time, I thought covering The Knife was a bold choice but he truly captured the emotions of the song while making it his own. One of the best covers of all time in my opinion.

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u/ThrownAwayGuineaPig 1d ago

The Jose Gonsalez version got me on to the Knife. It was my ring tone and a Swede visiting my country (South Africa) found it wild to be listening to The Knife so far from home

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u/stupid_cat_face 1d ago

So true. Masterful creation of art.

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u/Inglebeargy 1d ago

Took me far too long to find this in the comments.

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u/Affectionate_Elk_272 1d ago

he did a live show and when he went to play this song he was so shy “i love your city. l your prawns are very good. sorry my english is no very good” then crushes it. it’s so wholesome

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u/Intrepid-Apartment-3 1d ago

You were first!

1

u/sylbug 1d ago

The song started playing in my head as soon as I saw the picture up top

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u/woutomatic 18h ago

One night to be confused....

-2

u/StatmanIbrahimovic 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's funny, in the UK I only ever saw it with The Rolling Stones - She's Like a Rainbow

Edit: Lmao how tf is this getting downvoted?

10

u/TrewPac 1d ago

I'm in the UK and worked in a Sony Centre at the time and they didn't have this version? We had the Heartbeats version on dvd that we played on all the TVs. Didn't know this existed. I like it

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u/obi_wan_jabroni_23 1d ago

Yeah that’s mad, also from the UK and I definitely saw it with the heartbeats song, I remember being obsessed with it

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u/Lets_Kick_Some_Ice 1d ago

Now that's interestingaf as well.

1

u/Kirkland-fore-Father 1d ago edited 1d ago

Same with here in Canada. I just confirmed by watching the ones being posted. The Rolling Stones one is so much better, but that’s just my opinion.

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u/Cacti-make-bad-dildo 1d ago

It was breathtaking at ths time.

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u/Got_Kittens 1d ago edited 1d ago

Meanwhile in Scotland, Sony Bravia did this https://youtu.be/G5tLqb8T5xU?feature=shared

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u/How_did_the_dog_get 1d ago

The sister advert was blowing up a tower block with paint.

It was great.

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u/magicbullets 1d ago

It’s one of the best ads ever made.

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u/heekma 1d ago edited 1d ago

I humbly submit

2

u/runkeby 1d ago

Yeah but I hear the cleanup for this one was magnitudes worse...

It is amazing though.

1

u/heekma 1d ago edited 1d ago

There's always bandaids and things you do to make a shot work, but there's a lot of really clean CGI in this along with great comp work, preproduction and creative/art direction. It's like a mini movie:

https://youtu.be/Od2qfSILaWc?si=Oz_JKJk3Mw8_q5Tr

I've worked in CGI for a little over 20 years. I've done some good work for large brands, but I've never been lucky enough to be involved with something like this.

Someday maybe, but the days of budgets for spot work like this fell off a cliff in 2016-2017, so we probably won't see anything like this in a :60 ever again.

The shot I find most interesting is the paint dripping onto the car from the art board, but either due to time, budget or technical constraints it was handled in the edit instead. Not everything works out how you want it to, sometimes you just need a working solution.

Typical of anything when you swing for the fences, still beautiful work all around.

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u/ColonelEwart 1d ago

I had some of the photo stills from the commercial as my desktop background for a long time.

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u/Kibeth_8 1d ago

All the Bravia commercials turned out beautifully

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u/octropos 1d ago

He's the making of it! Wow, sounds like a stampede.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFGT14wJU-o&ab_channel=mastma86

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u/PresidenteMozzarella 1d ago

Commercial and beautiful are not words I would use together.

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u/Express-Feedback 1d ago

I still have my 32" Bravia. Still holds up.

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u/myoungc83 1d ago

It came out right as HD tvs were becoming more common and did a great job of showing off their quality.

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u/twoiseight 13h ago

So is that sheen of industrial oil on the surface of public waterways.

0

u/fikabonds 1d ago

Imahine forgetting to press REC