Wingardium Avios-a and other flying things

Love the new Avios advert. It's immediately arresting (well it is to me, I just stared and gawped at it the instant that soundtrack came on) and really stands out from among the other commercials. Avios is the new name for Air Miles (never use them myself, am mostly earthbound). The ad agency is (?? the magic comment pixies might tell me ?? - edit: they have, see below) and the music is Leila Arab's 1998 track "Underwaters".

 

Edit 29 November 2011: A nice man who is doing some work for Avios got in touch with me to tell me about this web page which has more detail on the advert. Thanks Jamie :) I've pinched a little bit of text to illustrate who's behind it:

Director Simon Ratigan from commercials production company HLA and agency 101 London have completed their new commercial for the launch of Avios, BA’s relaunched Airmiles travel rewards scheme.
 


Fly observes a collection of domestic objects taking to the skies, from washing machines with propellers and high-flying whisks to floating petrol pumps and even levitating lawnmowers. 


This video below shows the making of the advert and I really like that green bit of kit the chap has in his workshop. I've already tweeted this but I can't resist plugging it a bit more :)

 

 

The comments on the video suggest that there might have been a bit more CGI involved but however they did it the end effect is very pleasing.

It's not the only flying thing that's delighted me recently. Vincent Akkermans at Queen Mary University of London made this paper / styrofoam aeroplane which he's given a voice, specifically sound files of jets and airports. The aeroplane has an accelerometer and plays different sounds depending on what it's doing - sounds of jet engines when in flight, sounds of airport hubbub before it takes off - he's written about it on his site here and I posted this video to my Flickr page taken at last week's Dorkbot London #76. [Edit 2023 - I think you need to click through to view the video as the 2011 embed is no longer supported, I've tried re-embedding but didn't work].

 

If you're here for Nicola Conte's rather good Jet Sounds album (it's ace but disappointingly no sounds of jets that I could hear) then it's here in its entirety on YouTube too.