CASEY Director Carlo Van de Roer Takes Over the World in High-Tech Campaign for Call of Duty

Activision’s Call of Duty — the highest-selling videogame series of all time—approached CASEY to produce a new campaign for their critically-acclaimed new entry Black Ops 6. The approach: to create a tech-forward visual language for the legendary franchise that reflected the games’ shadowy, high-stakes aesthetic—but in live action.

CASEY director Carlo Van de Roer shot real actors impersonating the game’s “operators” in the iconic sitting bull pose. He used his patented in-camera technologies DynamicLight as well as PlateLight, two groundbreaking, in-camera solutions that allowed Van de Roer to move light sources even within the frozen world of high-speed imaging.

This was possible by moving light sources at up to ten times the speed of sound in multiple directions around the actors--a similar a setup to what Van de Roer created for several iconic scenes in the Marvel Thor films, directed by Taika Waititi.

Additionally, the footage was captured in separate channels each under a completely different lighting set up (again by manipulating light sources very quickly). This enabled Van de Roer to play with color and dramatic effects in a single take without time offset. It extended creative decisions into post-production, as the editors—and clients—were able to relight freely without the need to reshoot and while preserving photographic accuracy.

The resulting campaign is as energetic, mysterious, and tech-forward as the game franchise, through unprecedented solutions to financially-prohibitive—and often fake looking—CG and/or AI approaches. But more importantly, the visual language pays homage to Call of Duty’s dedication to realism always in tandem with state-of-the-art technology.

The experience was blown up to massive screens in Times Square, projected over London Bridge, and aired in iconic billboards across every major U.S. city. Digitally, the campaign reached the globe even more widely as the game saw raving reviews and record-breaking sales.

Earlier this year, ‘Toru,’ a co-direction by Carlo and longtime-collaborator Taika Waititi, produced for Cartier on a micro-budget, was shortlisted for several major awards. An itinerant art installation starring Waititi and Rita Ora, it opened in Shanghai earlier in the summer and will travel the world in 2025.

CASEY is helmed by executive producer Patrick Casey and boasts a roster of celebrated directors that includes Cokau, Favourite Colour: Black, and newly-signed virtuoso Ben Miethke. Call of Duty was commissioned by youth-focused creative agency Petrol in partnership with Treyarch.