In order to show off their new automotive technology called “Eye Sight,” Subaru recently released a commercial starring miniature cars. Filmed without a single frame of CGI or a blink of sleep for 60 hours, the wonderland of a commercial is surprisingly beautiful! We do hope that the actual cars in the dealer lots will fit normal-sized people though…
Eye Sight is Subaru’s newest car technology. Using cameras attached to the front of the vehicle, the system automatically brakes or disables/governs cruise control if obstacles are detected. While not quite the fully-automated car of the future, Eye Sight promises to help make our driving a bit safer.
But how do you convey that in a commercial? We suppose you could show the car squealing to a stop when some smiling kid chases a ball into the street—but that would be boring! Instead, Subaru decided to get arty.
The third in their series of “movies of miniature cars that don’t run into things,” the video—titled “minicar light stream”–provides a magical take on Subaru’s clever vehicles.
The numerous minicars all have headlight and tail lights installed to represent the operation of Eye Sight: when the cars detect an obstacle thanks to Eye Sight, the headlights come on. When they brake to a stop, the tail lights, obviously, glow bright red. Combined with excellent cinematography, the light from the dozens of cars creates an ethereal image, like torches marched through a dark forest.
But the cars aren’t the only things on display here!
The set—from a forest to a towering stone wall to a literal city of lights—is made entirely of props. Absolutely no computer graphics were used for the video. Making their high quality all the more impressive, the props were all built on the cheap as well—made from cardboard, paper, and color film.
But creating the props was nothing compared to the filming. Though the commercial is a scant two minutes and sixteen seconds long, it took the crew 60 hours to film everything. Which, like the mad geniuses they clearly are, they decided to do all in one go—without sleep!
To be honest, we’re not entirely sure why all of that was necessary, but we really can’t argue with the results…
And here’s the video! We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
[ Read in Japanese ]