ATHLETE ANNOUNCEMENT TREATMENT MAY 2026

CHOOSE your JOSLIN

A Stake athlete announcement starring Chris Joslin — shot on location in Costa Rica, May 2026.

DIRECTED + PRODUCED BY Erik Bragg
PRODUCTION Antimatter Media
FORMAT 9×16 Social
SCROLL
01

Storyboard

Twenty frames. 9:16 vertical. The whole spot, generated in the exact visual language we'll shoot. Read on for the breakdown.

F01 Establishing
Stake
F01ESTABLISHING

Cinematic wide. Chris at top of the stair set, board at his feet. Filmer ten feet away, camera lowered. Late-afternoon tropical light.

F02 What You Got
Stake
F02"WHAT YOU GOT?"

MCU through filmer's fisheye. Chris listening, mid-thought. Subtle handheld feel.

F03 The Shrug
Stake
F03THE SHRUG

Chris shrugs, hand already mid-reach into pocket. Subtle "I dunno" face.

F04 Stake Rises
Stake
F04STAKE RISES

OTS from behind Chris. Phone up. Stake logo lifts off screen in AR — facing him. Soft glow.

F05 Orbit
Stake
F05ORBIT

Dynamic side profile. Motion-blurred camera mid-arc around phone and head. Logo visible in profile.

F06 The Dealer
Stake
F06THE DEALER

Chris's POV — looking at his phone. Inside the screen: Chris as a blackjack dealer. Cards, shoe, casino motions. Held 2–4 seconds.

F07 In His Head
Stake
F07IN HIS HEAD

Punch in. Phone fills the frame. Dealer-Chris staring into lens. Audio is muffled, reverberant, distant.

F08 The Question
Stake
F08THE QUESTION

Tight on dealer-Chris. Looking for an answer. Audio resolves: "You gonna hit… the set?"

F09 The Break
Stake
F09THE BREAK

Our POV slams back out of the phone, behind Chris's head, whip-pans — cards and chips fly out of the phone into the spot.

F10 Chips on the Ground
Stake
F10CHIPS ON THE GROUND

Chris looks down. Cards scattered. A few chips still spinning on the concrete.

F11 Filmer's Question
Stake
F11"YOU GONNA HIT THE SET?"

Cut to filmer. The same line, but this time it's the filmer's voice. Real world.

F12 Chris Looks Back Down
Stake
F12CHRIS LOOKS BACK

Chris's face. He looks back down at the ground.

F13 Empty Ground
Stake
F13NOTHING THERE

No chips. No cards. Empty concrete where there were just chips spinning.

F14 Yeah
Stake
F14"YEAH"

Chris looks back at the filmer. Cool. Like nothing ever happened. "Yeah."

F15 The Approach
Stake
F15THE APPROACH

Chris runs up the stairs with board in hand. Determined. Locked in.

F16 The Trick
Stake
F16THE TRICK

Low angle. Peak of a 360 flip down the set. Hero frame.

F17 Filmer Marks the Clip
Stake
F17FILMER MARKS IT

Cut to filmer. Excitement. Punches the air. The clip is in the bag.

F18 Roll-away with Chips
Stake
F18THE ROLL-AWAY

Chris rolls away from the spot. From under his board, a couple of chips fall to the concrete. We never explain it.

F19 Chip Crash Zoom
Stake
F19CRASH ZOOM

Crash zoom into the chips on the ground. The screen wipes.

F20 Stake Logo
Stake
F20STAKE

Stake logo lands. End.

02

The idea

Chris Joslin stands at the top of a stair set he's never skated.

His filmer asks the question every session starts with. "What you got for the spot?"

Chris reaches for his phone — and slips somewhere else for a second. A casino dealer in his own hand. Cards. Chips. A voice in his own head asking him whether he's going to hit. Then he's back. Cool. "Yeah."

He runs up the stairs and lands the trick first try. As he rolls away, a couple of chips fall out from under his board. We never explain it. The Stake logo lands.

03

Why it works

i.

The Bet

Stake is a betting product. Every skater calling a trick at a new spot is doing the same thing a player does at a blackjack table — committing to a card with no guarantee. The metaphor isn't imposed. It's already there.

ii.

The Hit

"You gonna hit the set?" The double meaning carries the spot. It's what every filmer asks. It's also what every dealer asks. We never break that frame — we let the audience catch it on their own.

iii.

The Tell

The chips falling from under his board after the roll-away is the only piece of evidence the moment ever happened. No transformation. No reveal. Just a wink at the camera that rewards anyone watching twice.

04

The film, beat by beat

OPEN
A skate spot. Chris stands at the top of a stair set. His filmer, camera already hot, asks the question every session starts with: "what you got for the spot?" Chris shrugs. Pulls out his phone.
THE AR
The Stake logo lifts off the screen in augmented reality — floating above the device, facing him, not us. The camera begins a rapid orbit. We arc past the logo, past Chris's profile, past the back of his head — and we crash through him. POV.
THE DEALER
Chris's POV, looking at his phone. Chris is in the phone. Not as himself — as a blackjack dealer. Same face. Different world. He shuffles cards, sets a shoe, gestures with the textbook precision of a casino pro. Two, three, four seconds of this. We let it sit.
IN HIS HEAD
Punch in tighter. The phone fills the frame. Dealer-Chris stares straight into the lens. The audio is muffled, reverberant, distant — like we're underwater inside Chris's own thoughts. We can't quite make out what he's saying.
THE QUESTION
Tight on dealer-Chris. He's looking for an answer. Hit, Chris? The audio snaps into clarity: "You gonna hit… the set?"
THE BREAK
Our POV slams back out of the phone — past Chris's head, whip-pans around — and as it does, poker cards and chips spray out of the device into the real world, scattering across the spot.
THE TELL
Chris looks down. Cards on the ground. Chips still spinning. Filmer's voice cuts in — for real this time: "You gonna hit the set?" Chris looks back down. The chips are gone. No cards. Nothing. He looks up at his filmer. Cool. Like nothing happened. "Yeah."
THE TRICK
He runs up the stairs and tre flips the set — first try. Filmer punches the air. Chris rolls away. From under his board, a couple of chips fall to the ground. We don't explain it. We never explain it.
THE ENDER
Crash zoom into the chips. The screen wipes. STAKE logo lands.
05

Visual language

CINEMA

Real. Authentic.

Crushed blacks, warm skin tones, saturated surround. Long shadows and hard tropical sun. Reads closer to a fight promo than a travel reel. Shot handheld with weight, never drone-slick.

CASINO

Felt, chips, fluorescent.

The dealer-Chris world is a quick stylistic shift — green-felt blacks, soft overhead light, the unmistakable warmth of a live casino floor. Just enough contrast against the spot to feel like a different reality without making it cartoonish.

SKATE

Fisheye grit, no gloss.

The "what you got?" question is filmed on a real skate rig. The filmer is a character, not a crew member. The opener has to feel like it was shot by Chris's actual filmer, not a commercial unit.

SOUND

Quiet, then everything.

The dealer scene is muffled and reverb-heavy — submerged, like we're inside Chris's own thoughts. The "you gonna hit the set?" line snaps everything into clarity. The trick lands on a single clean hit. No voiceover. No needle-drop.

06

The Costa Rica advantage

We can't shoot in California.
This is the point.

I'm already on the ground with Chris in Costa Rica from May 11–19 for a separate production. One day of that window belongs to Stake.

What that means for the brand: a full crew already mobilized. Talent already on location.

07

The director

ERIK BRAGG / DIRECTOR

Erik Bragg

Director / Producer — Antimatter Media

Antimatter Media is a director-led production company built around high-production content for athletes, endemic brands, and platforms that need something sharper than a brand safety reel. Skate, action sports lineage. Cinematic bias. Zero tolerance for templates.

For this pitch specifically: I've worked with Chris on multiple projects. The Costa Rica trip is already booked, the filmer is already attached, and the creative leverages a trust relationship that doesn't exist on a cold shoot day.

"Athlete announcements all look the same. A montage, a logo, a handshake. I wanted to make something that does the work of an announcement while feeling like a piece of content you'd actually stop scrolling for."
08

And Nyjah

The Second Half

Same framework.
Different characters.

The framework applies to Nyjah. His hallucination beat is different — we develop that together once Joslin is locked — but the spine is the same. Question. Slip. Vision. Snap-back. Trick. Tell.

The two spots release as a matched pair. The second piece of content has 50% of its audience pre-built by the first. We'll treat Nyjah's shoot fully once Joslin is green-lit.

09

Workback

APR 28 — MAY 10
Approvals + Prep
Concept locked with Stake. Shot list, wardrobe, casino-scene art direction, VFX pipeline briefed.
MAY 14
Shoot Day
One day with Chris in Costa Rica. Live action plates for all 20 frames plus trick coverage.
MAY 15 — 31
Post + VFX
Edit, VFX compositing, casino-scene integration, sound design, color. Internal cuts by May 21. Stake V1 by May 28.
EARLY JUNE
Delivery
Final masters delivered in 9:16 / 4:5 / 1:1. Ready to run ahead of X Games Sacramento.

Let's place the bet.

Ready to walk through any of this live, answer questions from the Stake team, or start locking specifics the moment you greenlight.

DIRECTOR Erik Bragg
STUDIO Antimatter Media