A Reflective Interview With An Olympian

A reflective and emotional boxing animation with Olympic boxing hopeful Caroline Dubois. Here she shares her incredible story, from pretending to be a boy in the gym aged eight, to achieving her dream of qualifying for the Olympics.

The Brief

BBC Sport came to us with task. They had an interview with Olympic boxing hopeful Caroline Dubois and they needed to bring it all together. That’s where we come in! Using a range of different skills and techniques, we bridged the different sections of the interview into a cohesive whole by visualising Caroline’s story. Check out how we got there below!

Our Response

Style Frames

Through the initial discussions with BBC Sport and internally with the team, we knew we wanted to do something that would stand out. This boxing animation would sit as part of a wider set of films all under the ‘Picture This’ name. As Caroline had such a unique story, we wanted her interview to also have it’s own unique feel and tone. After a range of initial tests we landed on a loose and expressive style that would help to convey the emotional gravitas with Caroline’s story.

Visualising emotion

Each of the shots within the interview film sought to heighten Caroline’s story. The animated cutaways sought to highlight influential moments of her story and bring them to life in a visually interesting and creative way. Using a variety of techniques to bring the detailed assets to life, we pushed to uphold the flow of the interview and allow our work to seamlessly feed into her answers in a seamless manner. We loved working with the team over at BBC Sport as they allowed us a large amount of creative freedom on what we thought would look best.

Social Media

In addition to the landscape boxing animation that was produced, we also created a square version of the full film that could be posted to social media in an optimised way. To do this we went through each shot, adjusting the framing and animation to fit the new 1:1 ratio. In some sections we also had to adjust visual display text to allow for the best viewing by the audience.

The Result

The final interview film encapsulates the highs and lows of Caroline’s journey in a short amount of time. The animation portions seek to give a reflective look at the momentous stages of her career so far. This animated live-action piece will be shown in a variety of ways, both on TV and within the Tokyo Olympics coverage.

What Our Client Said

“Exceptional work and a fantastic team, The Animation Guys were a joy to collaborate with. They provided us a title sequence and related graphics for our Children’s TV show which has quickly become iconic. The understood our vision and worked collaboratively with our team to create a product that we were thrilled with. We can’t want to work with them again and you shouldn’t hesitate to book them!”

Faraz Osman

Gold Wala