How Honda’s dream team revved up some reveries

Can you share how you developed the concept with the creative team at Pablo London?

Ryan Chun: Pablo’s brief had already opened with such strong central questions: what if a human dream was something you could actually see and touch? How would it move? How would it behave? How would you test it? That idea felt almost limitless, so our job became finding the clearest, most emotionally resonant expression of it.

We started with this huge, exciting idea full of possibilities, then gradually shaped it through experimentation.

What was fun about the process was how closely it mirrored the film itself. We started with this huge, exciting idea full of possibilities, then gradually shaped it through experimentation. We’d dream up worlds, behaviours and ways to interact with these physical dreams. We’d pressure-test ideas, discover new ones, throw others away, and slowly refine the concept until everything clicked into place. We actually spent a lot of time simplifying rather than adding, always asking how we could keep the dream at the centre of the story and let everything else support it.

We wanted to portray engineering not as something cold or technical, but as an optimistic, deeply human act of bringing an idea to life.

In the end, making the film became a reflection of what the film is about: starting with something full of possibility, then inspecting it from every angle, shaping it as we went until it finally became something real.

How does the concept and its execution continue the Power of Dreams legacy?

Ryan Chun: The Power of Dreams has always explored the relationship between imagination and engineering, and found these incredibly inventive ways to make Honda’s philosophy tangible. I always admired the way it took a step beyond simply celebrating finished products to celebrating the mindset behind them. It showed the optimism, belief and imagination that drive great engineering. We wanted to build on that by making the dream itself our protagonist.

It isn’t just asking you to admire the end product. It’s inviting you into the thinking behind it.

By following its journey through Honda’s engineering process, we could portray engineering not as something cold or technical, but as an optimistic, deeply human act of bringing an idea to life.

Why do you think the concept is so timely?

Ryan Chun: I think people are looking for things they can actually connect with. There’s so much competing for our attention now that it’s easy for everything to start feeling a little interchangeable. The things that stick with you are usually the ones that feel like they were made with intention and have a real point of view.

What I loved about this concept is that it isn’t just asking you to admire the end product. It’s inviting you into the thinking behind it. It’s celebrating the curiosity, experimentation and care that go into making something well. That feels especially relevant today because those human qualities are becoming increasingly valuable. They’re what give people something to identify with.

Did it lend itself to many different interpretations? Do you see it becoming a series of ideas about what ideas look like?

Ryan Chun: Almost too many, honestly! Our concept felt more like a creative framework than a single execution, and that was exciting to me. Once you’ve accepted the idea that dreams can exist physically, there are endless ways to explore them. Different dreams could behave differently, respond differently to the world around them, or reveal something about the dream itself.

Every time we’d solve one creative problem, it seemed to open up three more interesting possibilities.

Looking back at all the different iterations we worked through, I honestly think there’s enough material there to make an entirely different second film. Every time we’d solve one creative problem, it seemed to open up three more interesting possibilities. It definitely feels like a world you could keep building.

Above: Honda’s Your Dreams Engineered campaign brings the brand’s philosophy to life through a series of tangible, otherworldly dreams.

Audio is often a very strong element in Honda ads, and this is no exception. Can you share a little about the sound design?

Ryan Chun: We wanted something with enough self-awareness to complement the tone of the film without ever feeling too sentimental or serious. It needed momentum and curiosity, something that could follow the excitement of chasing an idea while still reminding you that this is meant to be a joyful experience.

Our editor, Paul O’Reilly, found an archival recording from one of US satirical singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer’s live performances in the 1960s that captured that exact balance, and it became the starting point for our composition. Lehrer made the decision to release his work into the public domain so other people could build on it, reinterpret it and make something new from it.

That spirit felt perfect for this film. It’s a reminder that creativity doesn’t happen in isolation. Every generation builds on the curiosity and imagination of the ones before it. That felt very true to both Honda’s philosophy and the story we were trying to tell.

How did you marry the digital and live-action elements?

Jonathan Box: We supervised the shoot on location in Lithuania. We filmed across some highly atmospheric spaces, including a disused museum and a solar panel factory.

We filmed across some highly atmospheric spaces, including a disused museum and a solar panel factory.

These locations had a really distinct, gritty patina. To make sure our digital elements felt entirely integrated rather than looking “placed” on top, we took detailed set surveys and extensive photographic references on location. This gave us the exact reference needed to match the physical lighting and raw textures in post.

Tell me something about the shoot.

Ryan Chun: The entire team passionately embraced the spirit of what we were making. Because the concept was so open-ended, Pablo and I spent a huge amount of time building a really clear creative foundation. We wanted every department to understand not just what we were making, but why we were making it.

From there, I really encouraged everyone to challenge it. Whether it was our framing, production design or, especially, how Jonathan and I approached VFX, we established the premise early on that “best idea wins”. It was such a rare opportunity to make something this imaginative, and I wanted everyone to feel like they could leave a piece of themselves in it; to create a workflow where everyone was able to voice their ideas and reflect their own creative points of view on the screen. And I think that’s the entire ethos of what the film was about.

How were the ‘CGI dreams’ created?

Jonathan Box: We built these using a mix of simulation in Houdini and hand-crafted animation in Maya, blending the two to achieve the right balance of organic, surreal movement. We used AI to help figure out the look and behaviour.

How closely did you work with the CG team?

Ryan Chun: Jonathan and I worked incredibly closely, right from the earliest stages of prep. We knew almost every shot would involve some level of VFX, but because the dreams needed to feel like physical objects rather than digital effects, we wanted to solve as much as we could in-camera first.

We wanted to solve as much as we could in-camera first.

Early on, we established what the final result needed to feel like, then our amazing production designer, Sigita Simkunaite, built practical stand-ins that got us as close as possible on set.

Sometimes that meant small white spheres puppeteered on string, oversized beanbags, smoke-filled bubbles or a giant room-sized bubble we fabricated out of PVC that our talent could walk inside. They weren’t meant to be the final effect, but to give us real light, real interaction and something for the actors and camera to respond to.

There was always going to be a huge amount of digital work, but whenever possible we wanted the CG team to build on something real. I think that’s a big part of what helped the dreams feel like they genuinely existed in the world.