“Pick a Direction and Walk”: The Poignant Messaging behind Chase Saphire’s Cinematic Ode to Travel

In Chase Sapphire's latest campaign, director Ryan Chun masterfully encapsulates the essence of spontaneous travel and the myriad perks associated with the Chase Sapphire credit card – from luxury hotel stays to the exclusive new Sapphire Lounge at LaGuardia Airport.

Driven by a central theme that emphasises the beauty of wandering without a fixed destination, and inspired by a friend's travel story that resonated deeply with Chun, the film captures this sentiment through a series of vignettes, each one representing the fleeting yet impactful moments of travel.

The campaign showcases the luxurious benefits of the Chase Sapphire card, but also focuses on the essence of travel itself - the unexpected moments, the small details that stick with you, and the thrill of discovering something new.

Ryan’s approach to the project was to create a cohesive narrative that binds together these diverse travel experiences. Whether it’s savouring a meal with friends, enjoying a romantic hotel stay, or exploring the new Chase Sapphire lounge, each scene is designed to reflect the spontaneity and serendipity of travel. Through innovative camera techniques and a thoughtful editing process, he ensures that the film feels like a collection of vivid memories — spontaneous, unplanned, and deeply personal.

To find out more about how the artful ad came together, LBB’s Lily Paskin caught up with Ryan…

LBB> Can you share an overview of how this project came to life, from the initial brief from Chase Sapphire to where it is today?

Ryan> It was originally composed of a series of individual vignettes that focused on the different scenarios frequent travellers find themselves in. A walk through the ‘Sapphire experience,’ you could say. An airport lounge, a hotel, an Airbnb, or various restaurants the card gives them access to and how they allow for people to have new experiences. 

In the treatment stage, my main goal was to find a thematic and visual anchor to make all those scenarios cohesive. We positioned it to be about the opportunities those spaces create for connection. The goal was to highlight the offerings themselves, but with specific attention to the smaller details. It’s unexpectedly running into an old friend, tasting something for the first time, or maybe experiencing something familiar but with someone new. 

From there we worked to create a formula to give structure to how we approach capturing the different scenarios. As we got into production there was a lot of discussion of how these separate spots overlap through cinematography, edit pacing and how they play together in a singular cut. This was what got us and the D5 team excited on set and what ultimately led it to be a singular film instead of separate videos.

LBB> The audio plays a central part in the overall messaging of ‘prioritising spontaneity’. What inspired you to incorporate voice-overs in the film?

Ryan> It was to string these all together. We wanted this to feel like you were flipping through memories. You go on a crazy trip, and this film was meant to feel like the reel that plays through your head as you take off to go back home. You haven’t fully processed it yet, there’s not a through line or a developed take on the experience yet, just a feeling. That’s what we want the voiceover to point toward.

LBB> The voiceover notes that, “we sometimes forget to pick a direction and just walk”. How did you visually articulate this messaging throughout the film?

Ryan> That actually stemmed from something a friend said to me when we were travelling for a job I shot right before this one. It’s the idea of being in a new place and being so overstimulated you can’t decide where to go or what to do first. He was telling me about an insane night market he went to the night before and how he found it by just wandering. I wanted this project to take some inspiration from that spontaneity. Snippets of scenes play out but we never see the full thing. 

You aren’t over-analysing where to go or what to eat, you’re just going along for the ride and whatever we see in the film are whatever details stuck with you. It’s a laugh over drinks in a dim restaurant or the feeling of looking down at the street rushing below you. Some moments are literal, and some are maybe a small feeling that for whatever reason made an impression. Thinking back to my own travels I was just trying to visualise the seemingly random bits of travel that have remained with me. Some are the big moments you expect to remember, and others are a random walk down the hallway in a hotel I’ve never been to before. It’s cool to see what your brain deems important vs what it lets go of. And how sometimes the new experiences that stick are the smallest of feelings.

LBB> Multiple camera angles take audiences on a journey through these different scenarios. Were there any unusual camera or lighting techniques applied to achieve this dynamic end result?

Ryan> Some were planned, and others were spontaneous. I’ve worked with a lot of camera rigs in the last few years and this was sort of a final hurrah. To just go all out with things - throw a camera in the bag on top of a suitcase, rig it to a room service tray, or some glasses going down the aisle of an airplane. We sort of over-indexed on the rigs to see what we liked and what we didn’t. But the ultimate decision came down to if it felt distracting or not. 

We wanted to fix the camera to a lot of objects that were central to the scene to put us close to the action. But the moment it became distracting and pulled you out of the moment, we would can it. We rigged a camera to a plate with eight pancakes stacked up on it, and it worked great, but it ultimately pulled us out of the scene and made us think too much about the rig itself. That’s what was fun for this one. Is leaving some room to try something and then ditch it if it didn’t feel right. 

LBB> What was the biggest challenge you encountered during production, and how did you overcome it?

Ryan> It’s not the most surprising answer, but it’d likely be shooting in an active airport and in a lounge that finished construction basically the day before we shot. On our scout we had to ask what colour walls would be, or what surface finishings were rendered to be. On the day, the whole crew would go through TSA as if we were boarding a flight out of LGA. One morning, there were some delays with the airport that left us sitting in the main terminal with our full crew putting us several hours behind schedule. 

But regardless of how you get behind, the approach of how to proceed is ultimately the same. It’s meeting with the HoPs and  figuring out what’s the most efficient way forward. Working with the agency and client to kill shots while adjusting others so the beats still work. The AD and I took our storyboards and literally tore out each individual frame and laid them on the table as soon as we got in. Rearranging them like and playing with the order like it was a board game. It brought a new meaning to the term “paper edit” for me. 

LBB> Finally, I see you have an editing credit on the project. Can you tell us more about your approach and the technique required to edit all these scenarios into one cohesive film?

Ryan> I like to edit projects as much as I can, and especially with this one there were so many directions it could be taken. When it’s possible, sometimes it’s better to lay everything out and sort of see where the footage wants to take you. To leave room for experimentation instead of dictating what you think it should be without being deep in the footage yourself. Sometimes a looser process like that can be pretty brutal, but this one actually came together pretty quick. With a five day shoot like this one, selections can take me multiple days. I like to go through every second we capture, often looking outside of the takes themselves before we call action or the delay after we call cut. Spending so much time with the footage before you begin cutting can subconsciously lead to a lot of ideas. 

As I approach a first assembly, when there’s so many stones to turn over on a longer project, I’ll sometimes just set a 45 minute timer on my iPhone and jump into it as fast as possible. I’ll race to see what comes out when I don’t leave any time to think about something and allow all those subconscious ideas to start flowing out. Again, it’s not for every project, but sometimes when you work off of instinct vs meticulously planning it you find approaches you’d never have landed at otherwise. This was one of the very few occasions where the edit was essentially there when the timer went off. It’s a lot of luck and happy accidents, but especially for a project like this, I think it fits the spirit of what I wanted to capture with the piece. Just pick a direction and walk.