2010: The Year of the Robot?
If 2010 is the year of the tiger, Sundance should be known as the festival of the robot.
Honda debuted "Living with Robots," an 8-minute film documentary about robots, their potential use to humans, and the bad rap affixed to them in movies.
"Living with Robots" is the sixth short-film documentary Honda created as part of its "DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE" documentary series.
Directed by Joe Berlinger and produced by @radical.media and RPA, the film highlights Honda's humanoid robot; profiles the company's long-term research in developing bipedal mobility; and explains how robots are misperceived in films. Watch it here. RPA also developed the overall campaign strategy.
Through a partnership with Sundance, Honda served as presenting and official automotive sponsor, the official vehicle of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and exclusive sponsor of Sundance Channel's "Interview" program.
Honda also brought ASIMO to the festivities, allowing attendees to interact with it while catching a sneak peek at the 2011 Honda CR-Z sport hybrid coupe.
Coincidentally, Spike Jonze created "I'm Here," a 30-minute film that also debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. Made through a partnership with Absolut Vodka, the film is a love story between a male robot living a meticulous, robotic life and a free-spirited female robot.
The film was promoted on Sundance Channel's Web site using 15-second trailers and via video-on-demand.
Honda continues to showcase its documentary trailers during ESPN's "30 for 30" film series, as components drive traffic to Honda's microsite, where each film is housed.
"We wanted to give consumers an inside look at Honda, its philosophies and what drives the company to develop innovations like ASIMO," said Barbara Ponce, manager of corporate advertising, American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
"Through these short documentary films, Honda aims to share with customers the personality of Honda through the human stories and perspectives of its associates, friends and leaders from other industries," continued Ponce.
The Honda/Sundance partnership came about through a pre-existing relationship with Rainbow Network and suggestion from film producer Ron Yerxa, a Honda FCX Clarity Fuel Cell customer.
Honda's biggest creative challenge was selecting content that made it into the film.
"There are so many great stories and so many passionate people working in innovative areas, the most difficult challenge is identifying the topics and the people to interview," said Ponce.
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Just watched the short.
Wonderful, and wonderfully done.
But a documentary? Hardly. It's clearly a long-form commercial for Honda, and they didn't even try to hide it.
It's one thing for Honda's manager of corporate advertising to call these films "documentaries." That's her job.
But shouldn't the writers at MediaPost be able to tell the difference between real filmmaking that happens to be corporate-sponsored (the BMW "Driving" series, the OK GO music video funded by State Farm, Mobil's "Masterpiece Theatre" sponsorship) and this? I would hope so.