2010 Toyota Prius
We've watched it several times now, and the "Harmony" ad for the 2010 Toyota Prius still makes us grin each time.
Toyota posted a video that goes behind the scenes to show how the ad was digitally composed from individual shots using many, many people in colored leotards.
There's the usual amount of Prius feel-good marketing, much most of it in New Zealander what are apparently Australian accents. One example: "it doesn't stink" when the 2010 Toyota Prius is driving around the indoor set solely on electric power.
Seeing the separate components of the overall scenes envisioned by the Japanese director Hideaki Hosono--who is known as "Mr. Hide" and "represented by" The Sweet Shop, this month's best-named production company--is fascinating.
We wonder how it feels to spend a day as one of a few hundred people paid to crouch on all fours in a green bodysuit while wearing a Burger King-like crown, covered in what looks like a sheepskin, waiting for the cue to rise in a continuous wave.
The resulting commercial is definitely eye-catching, and as of this morning, it's been viewed 32,000 times on YouTube. Not bad for six days.
That song, by the way? We had to search, but it's "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers, from way back in 1976. Guess our neurons from back then are a little fuzzy. Below the Toyota video is our bonus clip of the brothers Bellamy, complete with period coifs.
We remain perplexed, though, as to why YouTube considers "Chaos in Congo" from Human Rights Watch to be a Related Video. Hardly "harmony between man, nature and machine" there. Hmmmmm.
