Honda Brings Celebrity Yearbook Photos to Life in Super Bowl 51 Ad

Honda’s “Yearbooks” Super Bowl 51 ad brings celebrity yearbook photos to life with a message to always chase your dreams and never give up. Created by agency RPA for the automaker’s long-running “Power of Dreams” campaign and the 20th anniversary of the Honda CR-V, the 60-second spot was directed by Elastic’s Angus Wall — with a52 VFX supervisor Urs Furrer, CG lead Adam Newman, and Rock Paper Scissors editor Zoe Mougin — and aired in the first ad break of the game’s second quarter. Younger versions of nine A-list stars spring from the pages of their high school yearbooks: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Robert Redford, Amy Adams, Magic Johnson, Stan Lee, Jimmy Kimmel, Missy Elliott, and Viola Davis.

SCANable captured detailed 3D head scans and facial expression scans of all nine celebrities for the ad, performing photogrammetry sessions in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Tampa, and San Francisco to give the VFX team the data needed to convincingly animate each yearbook photo.