As a brand, empowering
personal choice is a core value for Opera, manifested in beautifully designed,
experiential web products that give users as much control over their browsing
experience as possible.
For many users, this control
is often relinquished to pre-installed browsers, or legacy products that have
share of voice simply because they still exist.
Through ‘Escape’, an ambitious short, our goal was to offer an
alternative view: We all have choices, and those choices matter.
As a product, however, a
browser is a challenging starting point to create a piece of work both
rewarding for your core audience, as well as layered and relevant to the
product itself. The more they applied themself, however, the more the director
realised that browsers are how we view the world and how we engage with it; a
conduit for how we engage with technology.
When looking at browsing pain
points like privacy, ads and pop-ups, and self-expression in social media, the
director started to identify scenes that our protagonist could pass through.
This was how the script began to emerge, and ultimately, their starting point
for imagining the world.
For the director, the focus
two-fold: Creating atmosphere through a textured shooting style that maximised
the impact of the set, all the while
propelling our character on a
journey that had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, as we followed her through
immersive worlds that felt real and lived in––each different to the last, but
still a part of the same narrative.
In designing a piece of work
for the audience, the genre of sci-fi seemed like an exciting fit, as well as a
relevant one for the statement around technology and the future. So began an
intense collaboration with the rest of the creative team, who began layering
the scenes with intentional tropes and references to the sci-fi genre.
Ultimately, when you watch
the piece from start to finish, the director’s vision was to reward re-watchers
with near on a hundred hidden easter eggs that reference various sci-fi cannon.