Let's Watch Antiquated Banking Crumble and Fall Like It's Doomsday

Wealthsimple knows a better way

Who’d keep writing checks and entering PINs with their financial institution crumbling, apocalypse-style, all around them?

The folks in Wealthsimple’s latest spot from Epoch Films director Martin de Thurah, that’s who.

Titled “It’s Over,” the absurdist :60 breaks—and we do mean breaks—today. It’s designed to boost the brand’s online products as services as an alternative to the bank-pocalypse.

“This is a story about a failing system finally falling over,” says de Thurah. “We’re drawn to things that are new and different, but are perhaps also a bit afraid of them.”

In the film, we learn that the opposite of change may be … cataclysm. No lower interest rate is worth that. (Certainly not 0.05 percent. If they throw in a calendar, then we’ll talk.)

“There are a lot of things we put up with because we’re used to them. Even if they’re broken and ancient and expensive and kind of bonkers. Banking is a lot like that,” says Wealthsimple content chief Devin Friedman. “That’s what we wanted to show: Our comical ability to carry on even as the system collapses under the weight of its own crappiness.”

“Wealthsimple’s products solve all sorts of problems—banks that charge you for keeping money in your own checking account, pathetic interest rates, rigidity, slowness—that define an industry that hasn’t been challenged in a century,” Friedman says.

Creative studio and directors collective Flair helped in pre- and post production, informing the approach of Blacksmith VFX. Ultimately, the finished work combines in-camera effects with digital imagery.

“This combination is, or at least it should be, visibly seamless,” says Wealthsimple executive producer Greg Tharp. “The scale of the collapsing bank is an essential contribution from Flair and AI. The amount of destruction would have been unaffordable and taken a lot longer to accomplish either practically or with CGI.”

It’s all tongue in cheek, yielding enough memorable frames to fill a dozen ads. Each broken beam and shattered ceiling vividly drives home the message that clinging to outmoded ways could spell disaster.

CREDITS

Production Company: Epoch Films
Director: Martin de Thurah
AI Collaborators: Flair
Principals: Bjarke Underbjerg & Jeppe Lange
Designer: Ditte Ludvigsen
Producer: Michaela Johnson
Exec Producer: Melissa Culligan

Production Service Company: Solent Film (Sofia, Bulgaria)

Editorial: MakeMake
Editor: Peter Brandt
Producer: Niaomi McGarell
Exec Producer: Eve Kornblum

Visual Effects/Colour/Conform: Blacksmith
Conform Artist: Iwan Zwarts
Producer: Lily Sarokin
Executive Producer: Nicole Saccardi

Sound Design and Audio Mix: Ballad
Engineers: Gregers Maersh Moeller & Adrian Aurelius

Music Supervision: WeAreWalker
Producer: Dottie Scharr