How to visual effects
 

A few months back I remenber watching a commercial showing a motorcyclist riding off a cliff, falling to the ground, and walking away. This take consisted of a single continuous long shot. Assume some CGI. Any idea on the technique.

Thanks

How about the new truck commercials (I think Toyota) that have the truck rolling down the hill and there being no damage. The other one I've seen has the truck getting hit by a monster truck and actually stopping and flipping over the monster truck. They're both funny commercials, as well as very interesting. How might that sort of thing be done? Again, they all “appear” to be a single shot with no cuts/edits. Obviously that isn’t the case, but I love how seamless it appears.

It's true FX in TV commercials is getting a lot more sophisticated. I still can't believe some of the Mountain Dew commercials (the one with the cheetah is insane!). I have no idea how they do them, but can only assume a lot of CG, a lot of man-hours, and a LOT of money.

It is usually a combination of a LOT of things. Including models,
blue/green screen work, CGI, lots and lots of compositing etc.

For example, see these 3D models:

http://www.lewis.tomsoft.hr/portfolio_subaru.htm
http://www.lewis.tomsoft.hr/portfolio_Viper_4.htm

Yes, those car's aren't real:

http://www.lewis.tomsoft.hr/portfolio_2003.htm
http://www.lewis.tomsoft.hr/portfolio_maserati_4.htm

More info from the company that did the mountain dew cheetah
commercial is here.

It is very often the case that they morph or go from one footage
into the next seamlessly without you ever noticing it!

If you follow my last link to where you can download the
commercial there are also links to two articles that explain how
it was all done!

Should be an interesting read for anybody and especially for
the people who earlier on wanted to know how it was done.

Cars are generally very easy to look convincing in CG, since they're mostly reflective, metallic surfaces. Even if the commercial just consists of the car driving down a road they often CG it.

Thanks for the link, Rob, this should prove to be an interesting watch!

Thanks for all your input and the great links that Rob posted