Scott Dungate Reveals Honda's Inner Beauty

After showcasing the new Honda spot last week, Wieden+Kennedy London creative director Scott Dungate discusses some of the finer points behind the campaign.

What was the brief from the client for this project?

The brief for Honda Civic Tourer stemmed from the worries of the lead engineer. He was concerned that the car’s utility had been so well hidden through beautiful body design, that people would think it was all looks but no practicality.

Inside however, the Tourer was very practical, boasting a class leading boot space. The official brief was ‘There is an estate hidden inside’.

How did you arrive at the eventual idea and concept?

We wanted to tell a story bigger than just boot space. With this in mind we began thinking about the joy of discovering what’s on the inside of things. It’s human curiosity to wonder what is inside something and how something ticks. It’s even better when you’re surprised at what you find. We decided to talk about that.

You’ve teamed with Smith & Foulkes again for this spot; why is that and what do they bring to a project?

Choosing a director for this project was hard as we had a number of very different but great treatments. We had a lot of debate over whether we do everything for real or whether we embrace something more surreal. Ultimately we chose Smith & Foulkes because we liked the storytelling of ‘inner worlds’ mixed with the dynamism of racing across this landscape.

We also new from previous projects, that Smith & Foulkes would be able to deliver humanity and warmth to our inanimate objects. We didn’t want a clinical or cold cross section study of objects.

How soon do they get involved with the campaign once the initial idea is green-lit?

Once the idea is signed off we put the script out to pitch. The script was open in terms of whether we try and ‘do it for real’ or take a more fantastic route. We chose the latter.

How do you/Smith & Foulkes decide on what sort of style the animation will take?

We used a number of techniques to try and create a unique aesthetic. We didn’t want to use purely CGI as we felt that might feel a little too ‘slick’. We wanted the rough, unplanned edges of doing things for real.

Consequently we shot a lot of ‘real slicing’ in stop-motion. Live-action was used for shooting the exterior of the object shots and the car driving sequences, which were shot on location in desolate Terurel, Spain (It’s local tourism line is ‘Teruel exists!’).

Time Based Arts then did a great job using real textures to create GCI, comping together the inner-object worlds, and stitching the various film techniques together.

How long did the commercial take to put together?

Two-three months.

What was the hardest part of the process?

Sound design was a big thing for this film. This is what gave the film a lot of warmth. We spent a long, long, loooong time playing with that at Factory.   

With Honda having has such a rich history of advertising over the past 10 years or so, doe that put any extra pressure on each new campaign?

Yes. But I try not to think about that...