Guiness Tipping Point

In the previous post, the entertainment effect of dominoes was explored. Although Guinness was not the first company to capitalize on the entertainment value of dominoes, they performed a very well done attempt for their marketing campaign. This visually enjoyable "Guinness Tipping Point" commercial was shot in Iruya, Salta, Argentina. Director Nicolai Fuglsig mentioned challenges imposed by the high altitude and the remoteness of the location.

The Tipping Point commercial cost was in excess of $16 million which is equivalent to £10 million. This large price tag subsequently labeled this advert as one of the most expensive commercial in the world. It is definitely the most expensive that Guinness has ever done.

There were a total of 6,000 dominoes which took 2 days to set up but just 14 seconds to topple.

Fortunately, the car toppling section was successfully done in a single take but the number of takes the other sections required are not specifically mentioned. Director Fuglsiq did vaguely state that frequent resets of thousands of props were required. Other parts of the domino effect included 10,000 books, 400 tyres, 75 mirrors, 50 fridges, and 45 wardrobes.

A total of 1000 villagers took part in creation of this commercial. This accounts for most of the total population in the relatively small village of Iruya. One of the difficulties the director mentioned was working with the massive number of villagers who did not understand the concepts of filming or acting.

There are many who are doubting the total cost figures of this ad campaign but it seems about reasonable to me. There were not only raw payment to participants, salaries of professionals, cost of equipment, cost of food/supplies for everyone, cost of transporting everything but also a full 24 hour of footage captured with only up to 90 minutes of it being used. Surveying the proper location along with advanced planning also adds to the final figure.

Source

The Domino Effect (Literally)

Around November each year, there is an event in Leeuwarden, Netherlands known as Domino Day. Organized by Endemol, groups of domino builders collectively attempt to break the previous year's world record. In the last Domino Day, there were 89 builders from 14 different countries whom spent 8 weeks stacking dominoes in a bid to create a record.

Although there were portions of the dominoes that never fell or fell too early, overall the event was successful in shattering the previous year's world record by around 150,000. A colossal total of 4,800,000 dominoes were placed with 4,491,863 of those dominoes successfully falling during Domino Day 2009.

The bird's eye view of the entire floor plan of dominoes during Domino Day. The amount of spaced required to host this gigantic project reached up to 9,500 square meters. Equipment was used to host builders to the center for fixes and finishing touches that could not be reached normally without disturbing the outer domino pieces.

The 89 participants created popular icons of the 7 continents on Earth using some 300 varying color combinations. Patience and steady hands are a significant requirement to minimize accidents that may set off thousands of dominoes. Approximately 5,700 square meters of the floor was painted for this occasion.

The Domino Day partakers were from Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland.
I thought I had already seen some pretty cool dominoes creations but this is dominoes on steriods given the sheer amount of dominoes along with the diverse designs. Unfortunately there might not be an event this year due to the weak economic climate so current plans are most likely aimed for an event in 2011.