“When HONDA was established, there were only two spanners in the laboratory. Wrenching nuts with a spanner. This is where the story began.”

For HONDA, nut isn’t just a piece but a symbol of beginning.

We shaped this project based upon the words of Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda:

“Aren’t we setting limits before reaching them? Aren’t we bound by conventional wisdom? Human beings are born free. Why should we give up that freedom? These limits and conventional wisdom are based upon the past. Let’s forget the past, if it is only a constraint on our freedom of creation. Let’s take on challenges with new thinking. Be ahead of the times. There is no future just living inside the box. We can be whatever we want to be. We can go wherever we want to go. Live outside the box. ”

We expressed the founder and the corporative identity with a realistic and dramatic adventure of the nut, moving as if it’s alive.

Our initial discussion was on how we should move the nut-a symbol of Honda which creates a dramatic adventure through this movie. Whether we do it in stop animation or in CGI? Will the stop animation work for close up of the nut and CGI for long shots? But using both ways may vary considerably by its looks, so after a thorough consultation, we settled with CGI to create a photo realistic look, the nut moving as if it’s alive.

For higher quality, we firstly determined suitable CGI software. After various trials of compositing on test shots, we finally selected MAYA. The reason for this was MAYA lets us choose suitable configuration for each shot, enabling us to pursuit reality in expression. To enhance the quality in reality, we filmed various references, focusing on the angle and speed of the nut rolling. As a result, we have succeeded in making a “living” nut with CGI.