Best E-mails of the Week
April 16, 2006
HI EVERYONE,
WE'RE WISHING YOU ALL A VERY BLESSED EASTER AND A HAPPY SPRINGTIME!
LOVE,
(AUNT) LORRAINE & (UNCLE) JUSTIN
And from Magda and Chris in Roma,
Look at the Video at the bottom.
There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it. The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work.
They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence.
It is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!). When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.
Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor.
Oh. and about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial.
Click here:
Ciao!
GONE FISHIN
Justin holds one of the two cobia they caught.
Skipper Landon was a big help watching out front!
And cobia are caught this time of year by searching for them near the surface close to shore like this.
Here was Dad Wil with Manfred earlier this year.
Wil is in the hospital this Easter, getting help for his heart beat.
The family has flocked to his side for support.
The prognosis seems good, with upcoming rest for him for the next three months.
Here's another one later this week! Wow! Five feet!
That's Rick between Justin and Manfred.
Here's the motorcycle Rick built himself and showed me last month.
It's for sale for $30k if you are interested.
Tony Davis caught this fish. Justin and PJ had the honor of cleaning it!
Here is Auntie Rose with me in front,
Kelsey, Jim, Louise, Ray, Laurie, Kaarin, Todd, Pam and Fred
in Massachusetts at a family reunion yesterday.
This old map engraving shows Benevento, Italy and the Sabato (Saturday) River.
S. Leucio = Saint Luke's district is where Grandma and Grandpa were born.
The family originally came from Monte d'Orso (The Mountain of the Bear)
and crossed the river in the mid 1800's.
Louise's husband's branch of the family with our same last name remains in Monte d'Orso.
Lorenzo came to America in 1902, seven years before Grandpa Vincenzo.
Here is Monte d"Orso as seen from the river valley.
Lawrence, who is Louise's husband, and Jim, Laurie and
Larry's dad visited Monte d'Orso in 1951.
With him is Duke, Laurie's godfather.
(My dad had visited St Luke's in 1945 in a similar return to his roots.)
Pete
Laughing Out Loud.
