It’s not just a modern phenomenon but technology has intensified the desire to break out of the “rat race”. US cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has picked up on this urging in its Oscars campaign by Isle of Any that encourages Americans to find Your Way Out of Their System.

Leading the call is an engrossing two-minute film, directed by Oscar Hudson, that presents “you” as a financial NPCs (non-playable characters) in the game of life – a low-resolution video game world where everyone moves in a loop – until he breaks free. It’s an eerie mix of real life and alien feeling. Underscoring the sense of yearning is the 1968 song, I’ve Gotta Be Me, originally recorded by Sammy David Jr.

The aim of the video is for the viewer to see themself as the player in the middle of the screen, by balancing the look of old world of video games, representing an old system, with enough modernity to make it relatable today. So Hudson shot the spot using practical sets and in-camera effects, using real actors and sets, costumes, set design and choreography to sell the feeling of a virtual world.

Your Way Out is Isle of Any’s second work for Coinbase. The first was an unexpected Super Bowl commercial, The System Has Been Updated, that used the blue screen of death as a karaoke screen for new lyrics to Backstreet Boys’ Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).

Credits:
Client: Coinbase
Chief Marketing Officer: Cat Ferdon
Vice President: Gareth Kay
VP Creative: Joe Staples
Product Director: Patrick Marzullo
Creative Directors: Jordan Pories & Esteban Cardona Jimenez
Producers: Lucia Riera & Julie Gursha
Marketing Managers: Wes Janisen & Chelsea Elliott

Creative Agency: Isle Of Any
Founders: Toby Treyer-Evans & Laurie Howell
Creative Director: Ben Brown
Design Director: Mel Reichert
Executive Producer: Mateus Defaria
Managing Director: Elspeth Ross

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Oscar Hudson
Director of Photography: Ben Fordesman
Production Designer: Luke Moran-Morris
Executive Producer: Molly Griffin
Producers: Archie Johnston Steward & Andrea Harvey
1st AD: Ty Hack
Choreographer: Maeva Berthelot

Production Service: Gatehouse Commercials
Executive Producer: Bev Wynne

Grade: Ethos Studio
Colourist: Dante Pasquinelli
Colour Producer: Nat Tereshchenko
Head of Production; Sasha Pace
Managing Director: Eliana Carranza-Pitcher
Founder: James Drew

Post Production & VFX: Selected Works
Creative Director: Greg Spencer
Executive Producer: Alex Fitzgerald
Producers: Solomon Tiigah & Hugo Kilner

Editing: Cartel
Editor: Leo Scott
Edit Assistant: Beau Hogan
Executive Producer: Evyn Bruce
Producer: Kong Yang

Music & Sound: Wave Studios NY
Executive Creative Director: Aaron Reynolds
Executive Producer: Vicky Ferraro
Sound Producer: Eleni Giannopoulos