The Brief for EY: Banking
We were asked by EY to create an impactful film that would speak to the bankers of today. It would compare the traditional role of bankers to their current role today. Ultimately, this film would look ahead to the future. It’s central provocation being that banks need to adapt in order to serve future corporations and consumers.
By using technology to their advantage, banks will gather data and offer unique insights to customers, leading to more intuitive banking. The aim of the film was to encourage today’s bankers to use EY’s services to help them evolve.
Our Approach
Our creative approach used the progression of technology as a visual cue to mark the three different time periods. The ‘past’ was marked by a wall of stacked televisions, playing negative news reports on old VHS videos.
The ‘current’ section needed to feel modern and progressive. We designed this section to look like an art installation. Free-standing screens buzzed with data that our protagonist interacted with, as if at an exhibition.
The ‘future’ was visualized by a giant cinema screen, where talking heads from the future spoke to the Banker of Today.
One actor played our Banker of Today throughout all the different scenes, providing a narrative throughline that linked them all together. Our aim was to show her moving fluidly through the different times, interacting with each aspect, representing how banks can evolve from their past incarnations and step into the future.
Our challenge was in creating three large and technically sophisticated sets. Not only did this involve building these environments, but also creating the assets to play on the screens. An additional challenge was enabling the different screens to accommodate the different media – from VHS TVs to a Cinema screen.
We had a five day shoot in a studio. Aside from the first day, which comprised of set up and rehearsal, the structure of our days followed the same pattern. We would spend the morning shooting, then late afternoon we’d strike one set and move onto creating the next one. This was understandably quite demanding and tiring!
Once we’d shot the film, we used a VO to tie it all together. The client was really happy, and alongside the hero film, we then created shorter social assets to drive traffic and attention to the longer, hero film.
