Capital Athletics

Comfort Is a Trap

brand film

(overview)

A brand film for Capital Athletics, “built for those who don’t sit still”. We shot it in a gym, mostly in black and white, and cut it like a hard session: quiet before, loud during. Circles, flashes and double exposures break the picture the way training breaks a routine, and the logo lands on the bar.

year
2025
length
0:26
format
16:9

(look closer)

(4)
A circle opening on an inverted gym shot
00:03.09
The circle over an athlete
00:16.33
The circle, colours flipped
00:16.41
The title inside the circle
00:24.00

(in the edit)00:03

The circle

A circle opens in the frame and the colours flip inside it. It comes back twice, and at the end it carries the title.

00:18.40
00:18.50
00:18.60
00:18.69

(in the edit)00:18

Half a second

Ghost trails, a white flash and a double exposure, all inside half a second and timed like a rep.

(3d)00:21

Lightning, then the badge

Lightning runs along the bar, then the CAPITAL badge turns into place in 3D.

play the film, 0:09

(for phones)

The vertical cut

Four months later we cut it again for phones. Tracking boxes lock onto the athlete, one frame turns to an X-ray, pixel blocks break the picture apart and the logo arrives inside the same boxes.

(frames)

(10)
An athlete alone in the gym before training
A black and white portrait of an athlete
An athlete pulling, framed through the rig
An athlete’s face underwater, in blue
Ghosted silhouettes in the gym
A face inside an old TV frame
The title Comfort Is a Trap inside the circle
Vertical cut: a seated athlete with tracking boxes
Vertical cut: an athlete in profile
The CAPITAL logo with tracking marks