Honda's clever spot lets you switch between parallel storylines
There are two sides to every tale. Hit the ‘R’ key and this Honda spot from Wieden + Kennedy switches to a parallel storyline – the Other Side.
Wieden + Kennedy London has worked with Stinkdigital and The Mill to create an interactive double sided Honda film that changes when you type "R" on your keyboard, telling the story of an ordinary guy who leads an intriguing double life.
“The Other Side” is part of a new campaign to bring Honda's other side to life for the launch of the new Civic Type R in 2015. Directed by Somesuch's Daniel Wolfe, the video is a dual-sided three-minute film: two parallel high-adrenaline tales, seamlessly mirroring each other.
It was shot on 35mm in Slovenia and Croatia over 6 days and nights by Robbie Ryan.
One set during the day, the other at night. The daytime story sees a father in his white Civic pick his daughter up from school to drive her to a surprise party. The after dark narrative shows the father’s other side - an undercover cop getaway driving a crew of art thieves to a police sting, in a head-turning red Type R. Whilst they contrast in tone, the two stories have been created to mirror each other in composition.
The viewer can switch between each film by pressing 'R', triggering the ‘Race Mode’, throwing the viewer into their very own director’s cut to see how each storyline unfolds.
“it’s the brand’s other side, born from a racing heritage and thirst for innovation, that this interactive film heroes,” says Stinkdigital.
There were also two sides to the technical development, with desktop users being directed to Honda’s YouTube channel while tablet users enjoy the experience on a self-contained HTML5 site.
“The YouTube build uses a ‘custom gadget’, styled to look like a branded but ordinary YouTube player, making the interactivity all the more surprising,” says Stinkdigital.
“Behind the scenes, two separate video players are kept synchronised, showing each side of the film.The HTML5 build keeps both films in a single double-width video, and uses the Web Audio API to switch between the left and right channels of a single audio file. This approach lets us perfectly synchronise the two films for a lightning fast and precise switch, but is also crucial for the experience to work on iOS.
“The most interesting part of this project was making the site work seamlessly, not only across dozens of browsers and devices, but also 22 locales.”
Click through for the full experience.
The Mill takes you behind the scenes of the CG vehicle featured in the spot.
20 November 2014
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