Coinbase Built a Full Video Game World Using Nothing but Cameras and Printed Paper

Oscar Hudson collaborated with the talented folks at Isle of Any to produce a brand new ad for Coinbase, titled ‘Your Way Out’. They wanted to convey the impression of being caught in a rigid system and then unexpectedly bursting out, so they decided to film everything in real life, with no CGI or AI. The end result is a commercial that resembles a video game, but each frame was shot in a real location with real people and props.

Agency creatives began with a simple idea: who hasn’t felt as if someone else was making decisions in their life? The lead figure, dubbed Player 3984, goes about his daily routine until something gives and he begins to break free. He starts running, fighting back, and eventually finds himself in a whole new world full of real people. To tie everything together with the Oscars, the production schedule was extremely tight, as the entire film had to be completed in around 2 1/2 weeks after filming ended.

Months of preparation went into bringing this all together in London. Luke Moran Morris, the production designer, and his crew experimented with several materials, printing low-resolution textures on paper and then transferring those designs to fabric and set pieces. Every wall, road, and building surface were treated the same way. The ultimate effect was colors that seemed a little odd, purples that didn’t look right, and oranges that were flat as a pancake, but that was all part of the appeal.

The costumes were treated in much the same way. The lead actor, Arthur Chruszcz, had a garment built that was essentially a printed image on fabric. The buttons, lapels, and folds were all intentionally mismatched. Even the cheek prosthetics and full-face masks were created in the same way, with printed details giving each background character the stiff, angular looks of a non-playable character. Maëva Berthelot, the choreographer, studied video game animations and practiced the cast to get the desired movement and gesture, with arms swinging at weird angles and heads twisting mechanically. It seemed oddly believable while also very…programmed.

The second location for the filming was Cape Town, where they spent three weeks preparing the sets before breaking out the cameras. Some of the sets were tiny, allowing them to obtain a nice overhead view of the entire street. Others combined full-scale sceneries with printed backdrops that were so seamless that you wouldn’t think to question it. The lighting, on the other hand, was purposefully flat and shadow-free in order to make everything seeming two-dimensional and entirely appropriate for a video game.

For the most of the film, Director of Photography Ben Fordesman maintained a single, isometric angle. The camera was positioned around 9 or 10 meters above ground, providing the same level vision that we’ve come to expect from old-school games. A giraffe crane placed on a flat-bed truck chased down the main character at a running clip as the truck drove along the street.Later, they used a custom-built wire-cam setup to shoot the make-or-break transition shot, in which the camera began high and steady and then abruptly fell down while the operator converted to handheld. It all happened in one continuous move, with sparks flying everywhere and smoke drifting lazily into the air. Most strikingly, the printed surfaces shifted from being immaculate and plastic to feeling chaotic and completely real. The crew rehearsed that one shot several times until the height, speed, and timing were perfect.

A bright yellow arrow appears in the early scenes, pursuing the hero around. The crew actually made it by gluing together pieces of perspex and lighting it from the inside with tiny LEDs. Puppeteers on stage adjusted the arrow such that it could easily crash through glass or ricochet off walls, resulting in a physical effect that required minimal digital cleanup.