Adidas x Real Madrid – Odyssée Grandeza
Before I go into any specifics, I have a confession to make:
as a teenager, I used to be a huuuuge football fan. A total nerd. People from my school had stopped buying sports newspapers because both me and my best friend (now a sports journalist) used to know everything.
Now let’s skip to the spring of 2022: returning from a trip to Paris, I get COVID and an email from BOL (in this precise order). Turns out there was a pitch with a very tight deadline for a story mixing football, anime and the Parisian suburbs. The client? Real Madrid and Adidas. The conclusion? Must be destiny. The result? Please see below.
The whole project was an exciting adventure, much in the spirit of the film: starting from the synopsis provided by the MNSTR agency, I had to work with the amazing BOL team to develop the story, describe every little scene in detail, offer a distinctive voice to every character and make sure to insert plenty of easter eggs across the entire experience. Plus, all my football knowledge had finally turned useful for all the research and referencing that went into every football play.
And while I was in charge with the storytelling and dialogues in English, we also had great help from the super talented Mikaël Le Jalu who provided the essential French translations and local flavour to the whole project.
A few excerpts from the script
“INT. SARAH’S BEDROOM – DAY
Sarah is lying on her bed, throwing a ball up and down, lost in thought.
We see a Real Madrid scarf and a string of lights hanging on the wall behind her, with all sorts of clippings, from small posters of her favorite player, Benzema, to football/concert tickets, photos of her friends, a Ronisia poster. The Ronisia song is playing in the background.
CUT TO:
EXT. FOOTBALL FIELD – DAY (FLASHBACK)
We see the ball mid air and when it falls back we enter a flashback: the ball is at Sarah’s feet, preparing for the final occasion to score before the whistle. She sends it straight into the seating area, way over the goal post, failing clamorously, with the rival side bursting into laughter and indiscriminate insults.
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INT. SARAH’S BEDROOM – DAY
Sarah’s flashbacks are interrupted by her phone beeping. She grabs it and we can see her conversation in bubbles on the screen.”
“INT. SANTIAGO BERNABEU’S MAGICAL VERSION - NIGHT
The rivals are possessed by the 3 spirits of anti-fair play and start contorting into strange shapes: one of them blurs into more versions of himself, hinting at his ability to create illusion clones - he becomes the Illusion monster, playing with perceptions; the second one becomes a shadowy, menacing figure, with a long fiery tongue with which he can plant self-demeaning thoughts and seeds of doubt - he’s the Doubt monster, taking possession of people’s minds; finally, the third one bulks up into a massive, threatening, aggressive bully - he’s Brute, using physical force to get what he wants. Meanwhile, the stadium lights get brighter, the scoreboard starts flickering, and the eerie stadium tune starts playing. The stadium itself seems engulfed by the same magic: the pitch changes color with the same glimmering effect and we see the field starting to move up, floating in the air.
*The gates don’t have goalkeepers - the main point is to manage to get to them, against all odds. The match is ready to start.*
CUT TO:
EXT. BARBERSHOP - NIGHT
We see a catodic tube TV turn on, transmitting the match from the parallel universe. A curious passer-by stops and starts watching. “
Client: Adidas & Real Madrid
Produced by BOL Production House & Directed by 2veinte
Agency: MNSTR
Script development and Portfolio Writing by yours truly (¬‿¬)
#TLDR: Anime, Copywriting, Script, Script Development, Storytelling, Motion Design, Adidas, Real Madrid, Odyssée Grandeza