YouTuber Perfectly Recreates GTA VI Trailer Shot by Shot

Apr 19, 2024

YouTuber Andrew Levitt painstakingly recreated all 46 individual shots in the trailer for the Grand Theft Auto VI video game.

Levitt and his fellow videographer Jacob Phillips traveled to Miami which is where GTA VI is set, but in the game, it’s called Vice City.

The trailer for the latest GTA installment shattered YouTube records when it raked in over 93 million views in 24 hours and Levitt, who has previous recreated Apple’s Default macOS wallpapers, took on the challenge of making the GTA VI trailer in real life.

“If you’re a fan of Rockstar [the company that makes the GTA series] then it probably comes as no surprise to you that the trailer is extremely accurate in its description of Miami,” explains Levitt.

Two split-screen images of people in a store wearing bandanas over their faces, one side shows a woman in a black tank top with a red bandana, and the other a woman in a red bandana with a man behind in a black mask. — Levitt and his real-life girlfriend recreate Lucia and Jason in the GTA VI trailer.

The blockbuster GTA VI trailer includes renderings of real buildings found in Miami. So Levitt used those buildings as guides when recreating the shots.

He employed drones and mirrorless cameras for when the shots required them, even going into a nightclub with a clandestine camera to recreate one of the frames.

Not All of the Shots Were Obtainable

In the game trailer, a woman is seen partying near a pool at the top of a highrise building which Levitt identified but it was a private rental that would have cost him nearly $5,000 to rent. So that one was a pass.

Levitt also celeverly used found footage, taking real-life news clips of alligators walking around city streets to fill in on a shot that he was unlikely to capture.

Split-screen image: left side shows a tattooed man on a motorcycle gesturing on a highway; right side depicts a woman sitting in a car, also gesturing, with open roads and traffic signs overhead.

Another scene showing boats racing through a shipping lane also proved tricky because to recreate it Levitt and Phillips would have had to hire a “thriller boat” which costs almost $2,000 per hour.

Not all of the scenes had to be filmed in Miami, Levitt employed his girlfriend to play Lucia who will be one of the main protagonists in the upcoming game.

Split-screen image of two women in a car, each wearing red bandanas; on the left, a woman drives with a serious expression, on the right, a woman smiles holding cash.

The Grand Theft Auto series is no stranger to controversy and the trailer for VI contains some outrageous scenes which saw Levitt don a pink thong while pretending to water some plants — all in the name of the project.