Before CG, Car Commercials Were Made With Explosions And Wires

We’ve had pretty realistic and convincing computer-generated imagery fed to us pretty regularly for about 25 years or more, and while that has been a huge boon to filmmaking in general, I think it’s also killed a bit of our sense of wonder about what we see happening on the innumerable screens around us. And AI is just making that worse.

What I mean is that when we see something on a screen that violates every law of physics but still somehow looks incredibly realistic, we all pretty much know how it was done: some skilled people in front of computers did it, possibly without even having to wear real pants. The end result is great, and you can easily lose yourself in whatever narrative the imagery is in service of, but there’s none of that “how did they do that?” kind of wonder. Or wonderment.

And there used to be plenty of cause for wonder! Because when you saw something (non-animated) on a screen that spat in the face of physics and natural law, you knew it happened because a lot of careful, hardworking people spent a lot of time, money, and possibly put themselves in danger doing something that was objectively absurd. Like connecting a bunch of car parts to wires and flinging them through the air, and then exploding a whole damn car.

Just watch that video up there (or click here) to see what I mean. It starts with Commander Adama there, dressed like a cowboy for likely kink-related reasons, as he describes the incredibly elaborate and involved process needed to make a commercial for the new ’66 Chevy Impala.

The process is complicated because the premise of the ad involves having an Impala self-assemble from parts that are, strangely, strewn all around a fairly barren-seeming landscape, including the whole front clip that emerges from the ocean. The parts all converge, after flying through the air, in Fort Macon, Georgia, where they combine to form a full Impala.

I like how some of the parts are situated prior to their being called to assemble, like this scrubby tree full of wheels:

That’s from the making-of part of the video, so you can see the cinematographer there, and the director, shouting about motivations to the tree and wheels. It looks like a set for a Samuel Beckett play, kinda.

Getting those wheels to fly off the tree is no joke, involving a massive crane and the wheels mounted to surprisingly invisible wires.

The emergence of the front clip from the sea is especially impressive, I think, and has a somewhat sinister tone to it, like a kraken or some kind of Lovecraftian horror emerging from the deep. [Ed note: Or the Seaview – Pete] But no worries, it’s just some Chevy parts, that, considering where they emerged from, will probably rust away before they can cause any trouble.

Also, what’s on that guy’s helmet? Does it say “MEAN BENNY?” Why so mean, Benny?

I also really like these well-labeled boxes of explosives used for the final scene, which is run backwards to give the illusion of a car imploding itself together. Should this guy just have that box on his lap?

I don’t really get the point of the reversed-explosion part, considering they made this whole elaborate scaffolding rig to assemble the flying car pieces together. Wasn’t that the culmination of the commercial, with the finished Impala? What’s the point of all the explosion-blasted parts coming together again to make a complete Impala?

It feels like they had two ideas for the commercial – one with the wires and scaffolds and careful guidance way of assembling the car from flying parts, and the other where they just explode the car into hell and play the footage backwards. These two camps, the careful camp and the reckless camp, couldn’t come to an agreement, so they just did both.

I mean, I suppose that’s possible? GM was a juggernaut at the time, they could afford to blow up an extra car just for the hell of it, right?

Anyway, it took eight days and 26 people to make this thing happen. I wonder if this is the thing that convinced someone to buy a new Impala? Maybe they saw the ad and thought, damn, I deserve a car that makes itself by calling parts out of the ocean and off rocks and pulls fresh wheels and tires from where they grow on trees! That’s the car for me!

I hope so.