8 Ways to Sunday

Superballs invade SF in Sony’s commercial. Click for a larger version.

A commercial for Sony’s new Bravia high-definition LCD screen, filmed in San Francisco last summer, bounced 250,000 colorful rubber superballs down the city’s hilly streets and set the slow-motion chaos to a strummy acoustic ballad by Swedish-born Argentinean crooner José González. The results are truly remarkable to behold.

Filmed over two days, the commercial uses no CG effects at all — every single bouncing ball is real. The shoot involved twenty-three camera operators, compressed air cannons and earth-moving machines loaded with balls, crew members in crash helmets behind protective shields… and one take for each ball drop.

You can watch the finished product at this Sony web site. I recommend the three-minute extended version, which has some nice moments that had to be cut from the TV-length commercial. You’ll need QuickTime 7 to view the videos, and a broadband connection to see the high-quality versions without waiting forever.

Bouncy balls attack! Click to enbiggen.

While you’re on Sony’s Bravia web site, take the time to check out the following cool stuff:

• A behind the scenes featurette that shows how the commercial was shot. It’s worth seeing just to hear the thundering sound those balls made coming down the hill.
• Info about the awesome music from the commercial.
• A photo gallery of still images from the shoot (where I got these pictures). It’s mostly pretty pictures of bouncing balls, but there are a few of the aftermath as well.
• All kinds of downloads, including computer wallpapers, video for mobile phones and PSP, and a bouncing-ball screensaver.

There’s also a Flickr photoset from a crewmember that was on site with his digital camera. Some of the best from the set:

• This clothes dryer was sitting on the street when the balls came down the hill, and was actually pushed down the hill by the force of the ball-torrent.
• This comment by BlueAlgae seems to indicate that people were still finding superballs along Filbert as recently as November or December.
• A cool shot of the rubber-ball cannons.

(Props: Bibi’s Box)

The site is back up now. There were some major upgrades behind the scenes, so please let me know if you have any problems.