How Isle of Any and Coinbase made NPCs the MVPs

A videogame character breaking free of its coding and finding its own way might not be the most original idea in this digital age, but rarely has it been delivered with the artestry and wit of Isle of Any and Oscar Hudson's new film for Coinbase.

Following on from the agency's outrageously delightful Everybody Coinbase singalong during this year's Super Bowl, this latest execution - Your Way Out - replaces the relative simplicity of its predecessor for a complex live-action shoot that perfectly recreates the lo-fi visuals of PS2-era games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and The Sims in 'real life'.

The result is both a hugely enjoyable film and a craft marvel; impressing with every noticed detail. shots spoke to Isle of Any founders Toby Treyer-Evans and Laurie Howell, and MJZ director Hudson, to find out how they got things pixel-perfect.

This new spot obviously differs from the Super Bowl singalong quite considerably. Was that purely an audience choice or are there other factors that affect the genre of your work for Coinbase?

Toby Treyer-Evans, Founder + CCO, Isle of Any: It’s a different audience, but also a different message with a different idea of what success is. Where the Super Bowl spot was about creating a huge cultural moment, this taps into the emotion of what it feels like to leave a system that we’ve been living in for so many years. 

This medium felt immediately disruptive on TV, but is also a shorthand for a system where people are being controlled by external forces. So to us it felt like the perfect idea.

Where did the concept of Your Way Out come from? Are you keen gamers?

Laurie Howell, Founder + CCO, Isle of Any: Life’s a game, sometimes it feels like someone else has the controller. This was the starting point for the idea, and we loved the thought of using that to tell a story about taking back control and leaving one world, the financial system we know, to find another with Coinbase. 

Life’s a game, sometimes it feels like someone else has the controller.

It felt really interesting to us to make someone watching the Oscars feel like they had been dropped into a teenager’s Twitch stream and then use that to tell a story.

The central concept of this project – breaking free from a prescribed role – isn't exactly new, but the way it’s tackled most certainly is. What was it that first drew you to the project and what was the key factor you wanted to get right?

Oscar Hudson, Director: I have a special interest in unusual formal frameworks for storytelling. I love films that wear non-film clothing. So I was super into the script from the off. Working with the very distinctive parameters of video game language and gradually blurring these back together with reality was a very exciting starting point.

But the whole thing really clicked when it occurred to me that the best way to merge the two types of reality was to build our initial video game world practically.

The spot has the aesthetics of something created digitally, yet it was largely shot in live action. Was that a choice that came from the outset or something that was developed along the way?

LH: It was entirely shot in live action. From the outset we wanted to start the story in the game world and move to the real world, but how we did that we didn’t yet know. 

We explored lots of approaches and knew we wanted the change to be almost imperceptible throughout, and didn’t want it to be a CGI fest that left you feeling disconnected. Doing it for real made it immediately become a more human, emotional story.

What did Oscar Hudson add to the project? Why was he picked to helm it?

TTE: Oscar’s work speaks for itself but he is a highly original and technically very gifted director. His inventiveness felt important as we wanted to find a new way to make this idea but also a pathos that would let you feel the story. 

He immediately upped the ante and the ambition, and we wanted to find a way to shoot this all in camera.

The aesthetic is wonderfully realised. Can you tell us a bit about its development and issues encountered?

OH: Thanks. I worked closely with my PD Luke Moran-Morris to figure out what was going to work best, both in terms of look and achievability. We were going to have to go pretty creatively off-piste on this one so, despite a pretty quick turnaround, we insisted on having a materials test day very early in the process where we could experiment a bit and figure things out.

Set textures had to be low-res and slightly blurry, with all complex detailing and depth flattened out and reprojected two-dimensionally onto simplified flat surfaces. We also enjoyed the way the colours skewed into strange places, how objects would occasionally be out of scale and how blocks of texture would repeat over and over as the game developer copy-pastes.

Suits in games are often very oddly proportioned, because they’re designed by game developers rather than tailors.

The same logic applied to Ameena Kara Callendar’s wardrobe too. We made low-res suits where all detailing like lapels, pockets, buttons and ties were printed flat onto the fabric. Ameena also noted how the suits in games are often very oddly proportioned, because they’re designed by game developers rather than tailors. So we tried to do this too.

Finally we made prosthetic masks that were effectively our cast’s own faces printed out flat onto full-head lycra sleeves and stretched back over their heads.

The visuals borrow from early GTAs and The Sims. Are you a gamer? Were there gamer-specific elements you knew had to be brought out?

OH: I was more of a Pro Evo / Football Manager kid! GTA was a useful reference point occasionally but actually we looked at a lot of late-90s / early-00s games. I think probably The Getaway was our main point of inspiration. It’s basically GTA but set in London. The way the vast grey city is rendered in fuzzy, oversimplified forms and how the stiff suited characters moved too.

What were the elements you knew you had to nail from the outset? How were those factored in?

LH: Game world to real world, and all that entails. Being controlled to having control. Grey to colour. These were the threads of the idea and we wanted to find a pure way of capturing that. 

Oscar was meticulous in bringing that to life: camera angles that shift from game to organic, textures, art department. Oscar has a whole crew of magic people that came together.

How do you go about casting and choreographing something like this? Did the actors need to take an NPC bootcamp?

OH: We cast far and wide across Europe for physical theatre types until we found our wonderful lead Arthur. I wanted someone with a grounding in clown and physical theatre rather than just pure dance, as I felt it would stylistically suit the character and story better.

Often, the most interesting work is made at the outer edge of comfort and ease.

Then Arthur and I worked with movement director Maeva Berthelot to craft a movement style that felt original and true to the character. And yes, Maeva did then have to run an NPC bootcamp for our background talent too!

Can you tell us a little about the shoot? Did you encounter many issues?

OH: Yeah! It was bloody hard! 

Whenever you do something strange and a little experimental like this, you inevitably run into all manner of unexpected challenges. Often, the most interesting work is made at the outer edge of comfort and ease.

There’s a lovely oner about two-thirds through where the fixed camera angle breaks free of its limitation and follows the character as he makes a break for it. How complex was that moment and how did you direct the transition from rigidity to freedom?

OH: We called that shot the ‘reality run’. It was simple on paper, very complex in reality. The set was the more simple part, though it was totally massive – a 75m-long stretch that gradually morphs from gamey to real. Things like plants, steam, hard light, real glass and dirty foreground all really help sell the shift to reality.

Moving the camera how I wanted proved crazy complicated. I was very keen that the shot would start in an isometric game view and then gradually sink down, become handheld and zoom in tighter as the guy ran. Figuring out the grip approach was a nightmare and I definitely drove my producers up the wall on this one. We effectively ended up building a small wire-cam/chairlift/zip line that whipped DP Ben Fordsman along as he operated handheld.

The final flower market section we designed so it would match exactly to a real-world location so that we could do a very seamless cut and get us out of the studio and into the real expanse of the big wide world.