Premier League "The Run In" Storyboards — Seb Antoniou

Storyboards by Seb Antoniou for the 2024 Premier League “The Run In” end-of-season title sequence, produced for Premier League Productions in London.

The brief

Premier League Productions commissioned “The Run In” as the end-of-season title sequence — the short film that runs ahead of every televised fixture from the final weeks of the season into the title race. The remit was tension. The film had to take stock footage, close-up objects and CGI background plates and assemble them into a single rising sequence about pressure: who wins the title, who survives relegation, what’s actually at stake in the last ten games. There was no shoot. Everything was either archive, found, or built in post — which made the storyboards do more work than usual, because the boards were where the cut took shape before the editor sat down.

The storytelling decision

The film is built out of close-ups, not action — a watch ticking, a boot lace pulled tight, a dressing-room door. We boarded the close-ups first so the director could cut a rough animatic against the score and see exactly where the pressure was building before any of the wide shots were shot.

The instinct on a campaign about a title race is to lead with the goals. The director’s call was the opposite: lead with the small stuff. The boards for the first thirty seconds are almost entirely object frames — keepers’ gloves, the referee’s whistle, a manager checking his watch. Wide shots only enter once the rhythm of the cut is already pulling the viewer forward.

Credits

• Brand: Premier League
• Production company: Premier League Productions (in-house)
• Agency: Premier League Productions (in-house)
• Sound design: 19 Sound (Will Ward)
• Score: Molecular Sound
• Year: 2024
• Format: 60s broadcast title sequence, cut down to 30s and 15s versions for in-game and social
• Region: UK broadcast (Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Premier League digital)
• Seb’s role: Storyboard artist, full sequence

Process notes

• Deliverables: Black-and-white frames in PSD and JPEG, sequenced so the director could drop them straight into a Premiere animatic and cut against the score
• Revisions: One round of amends included; further passes booked as additional days per Seb’s standard rates

Board frames

Selected frames from the boarded sequence:

• frame-01.jpg — close-up opener, watch face
• frame-02.jpg — boot lacing, low angle
• frame-03.jpg — dressing-room door, push-in
• frame-04.jpg — referee’s whistle, macro
• frame-05.jpg — pitch surface, tracking macro
• frame-06.jpg — manager’s hands, touchline
• frame-07.jpg — first wide stadium reveal
• frame-08.jpg — crowd silhouette, against floodlight
• frame-09.jpg — goal-line technology graphic, CGI plate ref
• frame-10.jpg — final whistle, tight on referee

Final film

Final cut on YouTube: https://youtu.be/E9hn_Hvn-rg