RPA Celebrates ‘The Power of Dreams’ for Honda

RPA created a campaign for Honda highlighting the brand’s promotion of Little League Baseball, NHL, IndyCar, Honda Classics and music performance series Honda Stage. The campaign focuses on five children, tracing back the steps from professional success to childhood dreams of stardom. “Slapshot” and “Finish Line,” the first two spots in the series, focus on the dreams of a young hockey player and IndyCar car racer.

Both spots make use of intriguing device, focusing on a single action, but using continuous camera action to give the illusion of time passing from one moment of the subject’s career to the next. To accomplish this, “a combination of high-speed motion control dollies and camera array systems were used to create a sense of depth and angle change within each near-frozen moment.” In all the rig made use of “over 75 cameras in order to move further through space in less time than any dolly physically could.” The result is the impression of slowly reversing time to capture the moment a child first dreamed of future greatness. It’s an interesting effect, even if the message and overall approach of the ads is a bit on the tired side.

Credits:

Agency: RPA
EVP, CCO: Joe Baratelli
SVP, ECD: Jason Sperling
Creative Director/Art: Nik Piscitello
ACD/Copy: Jeff St Jean
Sr. Art Director: Suzie Yeranoysan
Copywriter: Ramiro Ramirez
SVP, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
VP, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler
Sr. Producer: Eva Ellis

VP, Director of Business Affairs: Maria Del Homme
EVP, Management Account Director: Brett Bender
Sr. VP, Group Account Director, Honda Regional Marketing: Fern McCaffrey
Account Supervisor: Alison Bickel
Account Executive: Donny Menjivar
Account Assistant: Corinne Loder

Production Company: Laundry
Live Action
Production Company: Laundry Design
Directed by: Anthony Liu, PJ Richardson
Director of Photography: Christopher Mably
Executive Producer: Michael Bennett
Producer: Nadav Streett
Pitch Producer: Dan Masciarelli
Executive Line Producer: Jan Wieringa
Production Supervisor: Tim Nolan

Post Production and Visual Effects
Production Company: Laundry Design
Creative Director: Anthony Liu
Creative Director: PJ Richardson
Executive Producer: Michael Bennett
Post Producer: Nadav Streett
VFX Supervisor: Elad Offer
Editor: Justin Freedman
Assistant Editor: Erik Anderson
Post Coordinators: Kirsten Collabolletta, Cody Shelley
Matte Painter: Dark Hoffman
3D Animation: Mike Koh, Steve Sprinkles, Brad J Hayes, Yas Koyama
Particle Effects: Yang Liu
Compositors: Robert Hubbard, Lior Weiss, Claudia Yi Leon, Raphael Mosley, Nicole Choi, Eran Barnea, Peter Beak, Tahira Ali

Telecine: The Mill
INDY CAR/”Finish Line”
Colorist: Gregory Reese
NHL/”Slapshot”
Colorist: Adam Scott

Music: Massive Music
INDY CAR/”Finish Line”
Music and SFX: MassiveMusic
head of Production: Jessica Entner
Creative Director: Tim Adams
Composer: Nate Morgan
SFX: Peter Lauridsen

NHL/”Slapshot”
Music and SFX: MassiveMusic
head of Production: Jessica Entner
Creative Director: Tim Adams
Composer: Patrick McArthur
SFX: Peter Lauridsen

Honda Stage/”Drums”
Music and SFX: MassiveMusic
head of Production: Jessica Entner
Creative Director: Tim Adams
Composer: Tim Adams/Nate Morgan

Mix: Lime Studios
Engineer: Dave Wagg
Producer: Susie Boyajan

Nick Kroll Steals the Stanley Cup in Comedy Short for NBC’s NHL Coverage

Nick Kroll really wants to play in the NHL—so badly, he'll steal the Stanley Cup and hold it hostage.

At least, that's the premise of this long-form ad for NBC Sports' coverage of the hockey league as the playoffs approach. Kroll and his henchmen get up to predictably idiotic but entertaining antics. That includes, naturally, eating out of the trophy—first salad and then fondue. Kudos to them for keeping the meal balanced.

The ad was created by the Brooklyn Brothers, which is carving out a specialty of pairing comedians with sports leagues—it also turned Jason Sudeikis into a soccer coach for the Premier League on NBC last year. The network also airs NHL games, and reportedly recommended the agency for the hockey work.

NBC's own talent also makes cameos in the ad, including Jim Cramer—the perfect choice for a spot that shouldn't be taken seriously.