Honda Insight Commercial's Carbon Footprint Not What It Seems

A hybrid vehicle is supposed to save energy and be kind to the environment, right? Honda hopes to drive right up that alley with its new Insight hybrid vehicle. All good.

But, while watching this new W+K Amsterdam-created commercial, Let It Shine, we can't help but wonder how much gas was used to power all those cars in the commercial. But wait, wait. You will be pleased to know that while the agency intended to shoot the commercial "live" with real cars flashing real headlights, the were concerned with the carbon footprint and opted for another solution.

After doing the work to see what was possible W+K and Honda made the decision to look at a more environmentally friendly alternative. The result was a mix of Houdini 3-D modeling software for animation precision, a small number of Insight vehicles for scale and a few hundred Insight headlights. The vehicles and headlights were spaced and wired together while a computer program created the two separate halves of the animations. These animation halves were then married together in post-production.

Everyone happy now? Good.