Driving, Simulated

A brand commercial for a VR driving-simulator startup, built around the moment the real car and the simulated one turn out to be the same thing.

Category
Product & Technology
Year
2022

A commercial for a startup building VR driving simulators. The film opens on a car alone on an endless white plane, moving as a real car moves. Then the bodywork turns to glass and the driver appears inside it, and the cut widens to reveal the same person sitting in a headset with their hands on a wheel that is not there. The argument is made entirely by the transition: what you just watched was already the simulation.

The challenge

Selling a simulator is a trap. Show the hardware and it looks like a chair with a screen; show the virtual world and it looks like a video game. Neither communicates the thing the product is actually selling, which is the feeling that you are driving.

The approach

Strip everything that is not the idea. No environment, no set, no colour — a white infinite plane, a single car, and one figure. The whole film hangs on one x-ray transition where the car becomes transparent and the driver inside it is revealed to be the person in the headset. Because the world is deliberately empty, there is nothing to distract from that reveal, and the viewer works the point out a beat before the film says it.

Process
The commercial
My role

Concept, vehicle and character modelling, animation, look-dev, lighting and rendering.

Services used
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