Work BBC Sport
BBC Winter Olympics — The Fearless Are Here Storyboards
Storyboarded sequences for the BBC Sport Winter Olympics title and trailer animation, produced in-house at Nexus Studios with directors Smith & Foulkes — athletes set against surreal, supernatural environments in the run-up to the Pyeongchang Games.
Storyboards by Seb Antoniou for the 2018 BBC Sport Winter Olympics “The Fearless Are Here” campaign, produced for Y&R London and directed by Smith & Foulkes at Nexus Studios in London.
The brief
A trailer and title sequence for the BBC’s coverage of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The film follows winter-sport athletes through the mental, physical and psychological challenges of the Games, set against surreal, weather-driven environments rather than literal sporting venues. It ran as a trailer in the run-up to the Games and as the title sequence across every Winter Olympics programme on the BBC. Y&R London had already made two BAFTA-winning Winter Olympic ads, so the bar going in was high. The film was animated 2D at Nexus Studios with directors Smith & Foulkes.
The storytelling decision
The film had to make people feel the weather. You can do that with sound and grade later, but it starts in the boards: where you place the horizon, how much sky you leave, how the athlete reads against the snow. Get that wrong and no amount of finish will save it.
Credits
- Agency · Y&R London
- Production company · Nexus Studios
- Directors · Smith & Foulkes
- Year · 2018
- Format · Trailer plus title sequence and idents across BBC Winter Olympics programming
- Region · UK
- Role · Storyboards / animatic layout, in-house at Nexus Studios
Process notes
- Turnaround · Multi-week in-house attachment at Nexus Studios. The team also used VR at the animatic and layout stage to block scenes and camera moves in 3D, which fed the 2D animators
- Deliverables · Boards and animatic frames feeding the 2D animation pipeline; reference compositions for the Smith & Foulkes direction
Board frames
The frames published here are a small selection from the in-house sequence. Full reels of in-house Nexus work are not publicly distributed — agencies and producers wanting deeper reference should email seb@sebantoniou.com.
- Frame 1 — opening environment establishing, athlete entering frame
- Frame 2 — extreme weather close-up
- Frame 3 — chase/competition mid-action
- Frame 4 — supernatural environment beat
- Frame 5 — hero hold on the athlete
- Frame 6 — end card transition
The boards
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Opening sequence — athlete against extreme environment, boarded for camera move.