Look At Me Now, I'm Just Makin' My Play

June 23, 2016 4:08 PM

When filming cars for movies or commercials, coordinating the availability of exotic, high-performance, or new vehicles--along with the location, the filming, and setting up the perfect shot--can be difficult and expensive. For a shoot, you need the car--that is, until now. The next car you see onscreen may actually be The Blackbird.
posted by mattdidthat (59 comments total)

Ah, but can it simulate a Reliant Regal?
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:14 PM on June 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does anybody need to advertise a Reliant Regal?
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:21 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I saw this today, and while I think it is a great thing from a marketing perspective, the idea that the car can model a wide range of vehicle behaviour is a long way off. But if you're only doing relatively low load or speed filming, the reactions are probably close enough to not matter. But high speed testing? The Blackbird has pretty good suspension set up, from what I can tell, and very good body control and grip. Arguably, this may create a very false perception of a vehicles capabilities in an advert compared to what a real version can do.

I mean, I know it is UNHEARD OF for car manufacturers to make false claims and exaggerate what their cars can do in other ways, but the difference, dynamically, between the Blackbird and (say) a VW Polo (or any crossover, or SUV or the like) is massive. Completely different suspension design and roll/handling characteristics.

I know they say they can 'adjust the car to account for that' but that is at best 'optimistic' and at worst 'er, wrong'. Wildly different suspension geometry is hard (expensive and difficult, but doable) to model to that degree, but getting one style of suspension to model the behaviour of another is just not possible. So the fundamental capability of the Blackbird (relatively low slung, double wishbone suspension front and rear and decent geometry otherwise) will make any car it is modelling look pretty good by comparison.

I mean, the idea is insane and I'd love to play with one and work with it, but it will potentially produce 'surprisingly capable' performance when the boring old hatchback is pasted on top of it in post production. Which... is a little distasteful.
posted by Brockles at 4:23 PM on June 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

I thought and thought what the camera were for and then looking at the one photo it's so you can do environment mapping onto the CG surface of the generated car. Pretty sophisticated.
posted by GuyZero at 4:25 PM on June 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

I must be getting old, because I can't get past my initial instinctive reaction that this is hideously dishonest. And I know...advertising, right? What are ya gonna do? But even by the low standards of truth in advertising, this seems scummy.
posted by Ipsifendus at 4:25 PM on June 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Honesty is a test drive.

Honesty has always been a test drive.

Honesty will always be a test drive.
posted by oceanjesse at 4:30 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Several VFX technicians have mentioned on Twitter that a large percentage of cars in car ads are digital. This will just be making it easier on them.

Also: shades of the Dino Input Device
posted by Brainy at 4:33 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't get past my initial instinctive reaction that this is hideously dishonest.

Absolutely. I have less of an issue for it being used in movies, though. Because it allows all kinds of product tie ins and the like and movies are less than real anyway. But in an actual TV ad, I think the car should represent itself realistically, and that is just not going to happen with this thing if you paste a Minivan over the top of it (or basically, anything other than a high end-ish performance model - Subaru BRZ/Corvette and up).
posted by Brockles at 4:37 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't get past my initial instinctive reaction that this is hideously dishonest.

It's a commercial; you expected honesty?
posted by octothorpe at 4:46 PM on June 23, 2016

I can't get past my initial instinctive reaction that this is clever as fuck.
posted by selfnoise at 4:47 PM on June 23, 2016 [17 favorites]

>I can't get past my initial instinctive reaction that this is hideously dishonest.

Well, yeah... they couldn't use it to make advertising otherwise.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:54 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I assume/hope the clients will be action-movie studios rather than car commercials. (I could maybe also see a show like Top Gear using something like that in creative unintended ways to produce stylistic flash-cut "flavor" material that would not be intended to look like real footage, or to do an actual fake scene to fill a gap in a clearly-scripted story)

On reflection, I don't think I've ever seen a commercial for a car I've purchased or are planning to purchase, so it seems a bit weird to me that car commercials are such a vast expensive industry that (in my case anyway) hasn't even hit its mark directly, but I guess it helps them frame their narrative culturally around me regardless of whether the media reaches me in person.
posted by anonymisc at 5:00 PM on June 23, 2016

Huh. I just assumed most car commercials were all CG these days, anyway.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:09 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Forget the car commercials, I want to tool around town in the Blackbird itself.
posted by ejs at 5:11 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cheap Matrix: in reality we are just sitting, watching TVs, viewing simulated reality in TV commercials in order to get us to spend money powering the economy.

Nothing is real...
posted by njohnson23 at 5:13 PM on June 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Brockles has a good point. I'm curious to see the difference between viewing the real car in a commercial and the CGI version.

(I'm an avowed CGI-is-often-over-used person, and this one grarrs me in a "horribly dishonest" way too, even if it's a commericial - duh, we all know commercials lie)
posted by agregoli at 5:17 PM on June 23, 2016

Did people think the the clean, pothole-free and traffic-less streets in car commercials were real too? Or the very modern and shiny but mysteriously generic and logo-free cityscapes that they drive past? Or that fact that you never see a camera or crew reflected in the oh so shiny surfaces of the car even when they're shot at a 90 angle?
posted by octothorpe at 5:19 PM on June 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh for crying out loud. There's no need for all this acting like we're idiots who don't know how commercials work. There's more than that to talk about here.
posted by agregoli at 5:21 PM on June 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh for crying out loud. There's no need for all this acting like we're idiots who don't know how commercials work. There's more than that to talk about here.

Like... their payroll maybe?
posted by hal9k at 5:29 PM on June 23, 2016

I worked for a company a few years back that did digital cars for a couple of the major car companies. I was honestly quite surprised when I saw how much of it was done digitally. Given good artists, good meshes and good post production, you can make it look pretty darn real - and we had instances where a single frame would take many hours to render, and then get worked more to add those last few touches. The hard part was often the environment (though some of those, especially urban environments) were digital as well.
posted by Death and Gravity at 5:32 PM on June 23, 2016

I want to see a set of mock up ads with the most incongruous cars possible in the various scenarios. A Yaris fording the rocky stream. An F150 hugging the corner and rolling up to the club on the dark city street. An El Camino... well, doing anything really. I'd love to see a modern car ad for an El Camino.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 5:48 PM on June 23, 2016 [11 favorites]

I'm trying to think of another career all this intellectual and technical, uh, horsepower could be directed toward.
posted by amtho at 5:53 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Michael Crichton predicted this back in 1981! Although his version had CGI women instead of cars, and commercials that subliminally hypnotized you, and a gun that makes the target lose time and the user invisible, and Albert Finney. But other than that, totally the same.
posted by ejs at 6:08 PM on June 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is the market for this really car commercials? I mean sure, dangerous stunt driving with a Bugatti Veyron in an action movie with a tight budget, this lets you do it for a lot less, or is maybe your only option. But I would think the one element of a car commercial that Honda would absolutely be able to get its hands without too much trouble would be a couple of Civics.
posted by Naberius at 6:10 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

But high speed testing? The Blackbird has pretty good suspension set up, from what I can tell, and very good body control and grip.

Brockles, I'd guess that they're not depending on The Blackbird to physically emulate details like suspension.

Although they do some simple physical emulation, my bet would be that they're not just replacing The Blackbird with a skin but emulating the physical characteristics of the target vehicle in software as well, as you would in a video game. If so it could be as easily used to emulate a tank, for example.

In that case, a good way to think of The Blackbird is as a drivable 360° camera with a shitload of sensors.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 6:11 PM on June 23, 2016

octothorpe: "Did people think the the clean, pothole-free and traffic-less streets in car commercials were real too? Or the very modern and shiny but mysteriously generic and logo-free cityscapes that they drive past? Or that fact that you never see a camera or crew reflected in the oh so shiny surfaces of the car even when they're shot at a 90 angle?"

Well, if you'd specifically asked me those questions, a lightbulb would have popped up over my head, but, yeah, until this I had assumed that the cars in commercials were real.

Sorry to bring the IQ average in the room down.
posted by Bugbread at 6:19 PM on June 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Very nice. Very impressive.

Now do the same trick for ACTORS.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 6:20 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Actually, ArmandoA, if you read the FA you will see that suspension emulation is supposedly a major deal with the Blackbird. It's the environmental performance (things like dust kick-up and splashed water), suspension, and wheels which the CGI doesn't do so well at and which the Blackbird is meant to do for the CGI crews. You probably wouldn't want to tool around town in the Blackbird, because it's probably got a range of about 20 minutes for its electric propulsion system. But its length and width can be adjusted to match the CGI target car and, according to the blurb, its suspension performance can be adjusted to match too. Which would be necessary since that's part of the whole point of the Blackbird.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:21 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

> I could maybe also see a show like Top Gear using something like that in creative unintended ways to produce stylistic flash-cut "flavor" material that would not be intended to look like real footage

Emphasis added. Nothing on Top Gear is real. They aren't "journalists". It's an entertainment show. On the last episode, they bought an Audi A8 and a Jaguar XJ8 for about 2000 pounds each and drove them to Venice. No. Sorry. I just can't believe both of those cars made that trip trouble free on the tires they came with. They also cut back to Matt LeBlanc on a motorcycle on the exact same road in what was supposedly a bit later.
posted by morganw at 6:26 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have less of an issue for it being used in movies, though. Because it allows all kinds of product tie ins and the like and movies are less than real anyway.

Also useful if part way through production of your movie your tie-in with Ford falls through and now the good guys have to drive Nissans.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:34 PM on June 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

But I would think the one element of a car commercial that Honda would absolutely be able to get its hands without too much trouble would be a couple of Civics.


I would think that depends how far ahead of vehicle production they're shooting the commercials, though. If they're launching a new vehicle design and gearing up the advertising campaign for that, they don't want to shoot with the Civics that are sitting down on the lot already. I would imagine they'd have some of the new model cars available, at least final test versions of them, but will they be physically where they want to shoot the commercial?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:34 PM on June 23, 2016

But I would think the one element of a car commercial that Honda would absolutely be able to get its hands without too much trouble would be a couple of Civics.

You can film your commercial before the launch, though. When it is convenient for the film crew, but without having to have a couple of models of the new car driving around where they could be scooped by the nearest snap-sta-face-gram-book user.

But its length and width can be adjusted to match the CGI target car and, according to the blurb, its suspension performance can be adjusted to match too.

Which was my point. You can't just 'tweak settings' to model the behaviour of a completely different car - the mass, the roll centres, the suspension geometry all effect how the car moves. HOWEVER, if they are merely using the Blackbird for a set of wheels and a 360 camera and how they interface with the surroundings then I can kind of see it. Then you model the car on the same course in CGI and maybe it looks close.

But the Blackbird is cable of moving around dynamically in a way that few cars of that market are capable of. THAT is my issue. That watching is zoom around a car park and then dropping a Honda Civic skin on it would make significantly false representations for how a Civic can change direction and move around.
posted by Brockles at 6:48 PM on June 23, 2016

Oh, hey, I have a cousin that works for The Mill. This explains why the last time we skyped I was talking to a 2015 Volkswagen Jetta.

I just thought that New York changes you is all.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:05 PM on June 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm amazed people are so bent out of shape about this faking performance. Car commercials have seemed like they were speeding up/slowing down the "film"(or tape, or file, or whatever) since literally the 90s, shooting at creative angles to make corners look way sharper or the speed look more dramatic, etc. In a lot of commercials it seems like the car could be going anywhere from like 20-50mph in any given shot.

To me at least it seems like wondering whether the cheese on a mcmuffin is real cheese. The entire thing is probably processed food product top to bottom.
posted by emptythought at 7:05 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

But the way they are done now is entirely in the computer, mostly. This will use more reality than the ads you are seeing. Just assume everything you see on TV is a lie, especially things that are trying to sell you something (which is everything.)
posted by MythMaker at 7:06 PM on June 23, 2016

Give me a 67 Impala. Those things are apparently goddamn indestructible.
posted by Ber at 7:06 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Does this come with a set of generic car commercial phrases read by Jon Hamm as well?
posted by tobascodagama at 7:21 PM on June 23, 2016

BRB gonna invent this for pizza
*pries up manhole cover*
posted by oulipian at 7:27 PM on June 23, 2016

I recall a film legend that in old car commercials, the license plates only used symmetrical characters, so they could just re-use the same footage in foreign markets that drive on the other side of the road.
posted by adept256 at 7:29 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure from an advertising perspective, you couldn't use this to represent your car in a car commercial. There are laws and watchdog organizations that follow up pretty aggressively (remember Volvo?) But it would still be useful and totally doable to use it for a non-car commercial (travel, fragrance, cellular service, fashion, whatever) where you want a cool car in a hard-to-reach location but don't want to pay for it getting there. And in movies it makes a lot of sense.
posted by Mchelly at 7:37 PM on June 23, 2016

Now do the same trick for ACTORS.

They already do. Much of the movie Gravity was the actors' faces composited onto 3D-rendered bodies. The parts of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where Brad Pitt was an old man with a child's stature were pure CGI. CGI allowed Paul Walker to finish Fast & Furious 7 after his death.
posted by ejs at 7:44 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

We're all very sophisticated and jaded here and know how marketing works etc., but this really does plumb new depths of disingenuousness, even by the standards of TV car commercials.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:01 PM on June 23, 2016

They still have commercials on television these days?
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:12 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Forget the car commercials, I want to tool around town in the Blackbird itself.

Oh, good, it's not just me.

Also SMH at the people who are freaking out that the car commercials may not in fact be 100% realistic. Heaven help you if you ever find out what they do to food in commercials.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:29 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

So "Professional driver on closed course, do not attempt" really means "Dude driving a rig car in front of a TBD backdrop"?
posted by Spatch at 9:40 PM on June 23, 2016

True fact: there is no Blackbird, it's also a CGI artifact. The cameras are all mounted on a tiny tricycle ridden by a glum, cigarette-smoking chimpanzee. Which is why it can do the Reliant Regal so easily.
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on June 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

I mean are you guys actually deciding to buy a car based on how it seems to perform based on a few seconds of heavily edited video in a commercial? I have never used a car commercial as a source of useful info on a car, other than telling me if a local dealer was selling it.
posted by emjaybee at 4:58 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

This comment over at HN was kind of eye-opening as well:

"In case anyone is wondering why you would use a CG car instead of a real car: The purpose of this vehicle is to allow large feature films to shoot with the Blackbird and sell a product-placed vehicle in post-production to the highest bidder. It's a brilliant way to maximize the value of the placement."

That may not be 100% accurate (you can change wheelbase in pre but not post), but others mentioned that it would definitely work for export markets.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:24 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder how this compares to just taking a car similar to the one you want and slapping CGI anchors on the sides.

Also while extending the chassis via push-button is cute, it doesnt seem like the kind of thing worth adding all that complexity for.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:20 AM on June 24, 2016

Also SMH at the people who are freaking out that the car commercials may not in fact be 100% realistic.

Precisely none of that is happening. Several people are expressing frustration or disappointment, though, that this % of realism is getting reduced even more. Because it may mislead the people that DO think car commercials are real in any way at all. Precisely *because* advertising in general is already hideously false and making it more so is the wrong direction to go.
posted by Brockles at 7:47 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Given that it's already so common, how do CGI cars not run afoul of truth-in-advertising laws?
posted by R a c h e l at 8:54 AM on June 24, 2016

I'm sure they just slap a disclaimer along the bottom about "simulated performance" like they used to do for "professional driver on closed roads".
posted by tobascodagama at 10:10 AM on June 24, 2016

I suspect that a CGI car isn't a violation of truth-in-advertising law because there's not a general requirement that the car, as shown, is exactly like what you'd buy. Note how almost all car commercials show all the windows with near opaque tint, for example, or how the vehicle as shown is usually the high end model with the bells and whistles.

The FTC writes the regulations on this (in the US) and it's not impossible they'd take notice and update them. But I suspect they would view it as not all that important. They care about the financial stuff a lot more, I think, and that's probably reasonable. If the car doesn't look like what brought you into the dealership you have a fair amount of time to notice that and it's pretty obvious. Financial terms are a little less generally accessible.

If you look at their advice for small business they boil it down pretty well.

Under the Federal Trade Commission Act (link is external):

Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
Advertisements cannot be unfair.
Additional laws apply to ads for specialized products like consumer leases, credit, 900 telephone numbers, and products sold through mail order or telephone sales. And every state has consumer protection laws that govern ads running in that state.

What makes an advertisement deceptive?
According to the FTC's Deception Policy Statement, an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement - or omits information - that:

Is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and
Is "material" - that is, important to a consumer's decision to buy or use the product.
What makes an advertisement unfair?
According to the Federal Trade Commission Act (link is external) and the FTC's Unfairness Policy Statement, an ad or business practice is unfair if:

it causes or is likely to cause substantial consumer injury which a consumer could not reasonably avoid; and
it is not outweighed by the benefit to consumers.

I suspect the small differences between a CGI car and the one on the lot don't amount up to injury that can't reasonably avoid.
posted by phearlez at 11:16 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

For movies, sure. I thought there were advertising standards, though, no?

Like, advertising pictures for food - you actually have to use the actual food product that you're selling, but you're allowed to muck around with it like epoxy and airbrush and stuff? For example, advertising pictures of Big Macs actually have to use Big Mac ingredients, but the sesame seeds can be hand-emplaced and the sauce can be shellacked to make it shinier or whatever.

Or that Jean Claude van Damme car commercial; he actually did the stunt, but had the safety gear visually removed in post which is fine - whereas CGing JCVD going the stunt wouldn't have flown.
posted by porpoise at 12:03 PM on June 24, 2016

Food advertising is pretty deceptive. Generally the product itself is actually featured but almost everything else is fake, adulterated, or not what is seems. So for example for a picture of corn flakes in a bowl of milk, the corn flakes will be real. However the milk is PVA glue or white hair cream. The strawberries in the bowl have had their colour touched up with lipstick. Or maybe the milk is real but is only a half a millimetre thick; the rest of the bowl is filled with shortening so the flakes can be perfectly placed and won't get soggy.

Sturdy cardboard squares, used to make little raw (except for the blow-torched edges) ground beef-patty-platforms (with the help of the toothpicks) to keep the fatty patties from mooshing the frilly lettuce. A few strategically placed hat pins and voila! The world’s perfect hamburger. (Note: Bun selection is a critical part of the set-up process; photographers have been known to glue sesame seeds in too-bare spaces.)

Large syringe, to emulate the effect of a padded bra by squirting mashed potatoes under the skin of poultry before it is torch-cooked to give it a deliciously voluptuous appearance.

Photo shoots use boxes of mashed potatoes to stuff everything for more bulk and as a substitute for ice cream.

Taking an advertising pic of a roast? The meat is real but is covered in a motor oil "gravy".

Fizz in a glass of pop? Created with an alkaselter.

Steam rising from food? Water soaked cotton ball hat has been microwaved placed behind the food. Or maybe incense.

Don't want clumpy rice? Coat it with lacquer.

Any shiny fruit or vegetable has been coated with something. WD-40, cooking spray, Glycerine.

Need your motor oil "syrup" not to soak into target pancakes? A coat of scotch guard will seal the pancake.

Anyways point being I'm a little surprised you can advertise a car with a 100% CGI "car".
posted by Mitheral at 12:38 PM on June 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

So when everyone is wearing VR rigs 24/7 we'll all be driving these.
posted by gottabefunky at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2016

So when everyone is wearing VR rigs 24/7 we'll all be driving these.
posted by gottabefunky at 16:45 on June 24 [+] [!]

We'll be commuting with these.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:30 AM on June 25, 2016

We'll be sitting on a bus thinking we are commuting with these.
posted by 445supermag at 8:08 AM on June 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

van Damme had safety gear for that? I'm glad to hear it - still an awesome thing to watch.
posted by Ambient Echo at 11:08 AM on June 25, 2016