World Debut
The film
What began on the fringes — skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing — arrives on the world’s biggest stage.
A feature documentary for the Olympic Channel and YouTube Originals — executive produced by Tony Hawk, made with Boardwalk Pictures and Madica Productions. Step inside the 20-year journey of three sports born on the fringes of society as they debut at the Tokyo Olympic Games, alongside names like Tony Hawk, Emily Harrington, and Sofia Mulanovich. Shot across Madrid, Torino, Lausanne, Palm Springs, Mar del Plata, San Diego, Tokyo, Salt Lake City, and Lima.
Recognition
- Telly Awards — Gold · Documentary, Directing (2022)
- Telly Awards — Gold · Online, Sports (2022)
The challenge
World Debut presented a singular challenge: bridging the gap between the colossal, traditional institution of the Olympics and the fresh, culture-rich newcomers of skateboarding, surfing, and climbing. It was a delicate dance — closer to blending oil and water — fostering a dialogue between two worlds that, while now bound together, didn’t fully comprehend each other.
It demanded honesty, empathy, and a deep dive into the appeal of these new sports — all while crafting a narrative that would resonate with a diverse global audience, and delivering 120 minutes of unscripted film, start to finish, in seven months during a pandemic.
The craft
From the outset we wanted a visual language that blended the cinematic and the lo-fi — a raw, gritty aesthetic true to the counter-culture spirit of these sports. Sit-down interviews form the narrative backbone: minimalist and composed for the officials, looser and more free-spirited for the athletes.
Our partnership with the Olympics opened an unlimited archive — iconic moments and never-before-seen footage that let us walk the audience through the history of the Games and the journey of these new sports. Vérité at the IOC headquarters, at the competitions, and in personal spaces caught the rewarding, often daunting reality of chasing a dream.
The animation
To make the Olympic selection process accessible and engaging, we built a 2D animation language all our own — bold serif type and retro human illustrations filling in where the archive ran out. We drew from Mid-Century Modern design and the colour and clean line of a Keith Haring pattern: playful, irreverent, and unmistakably ours. It was the secret ingredient that made the film truly shine.
The story
Our greatest challenge was the editing room. A compressed timeline forced production and post-production to run at once — and the only way through was assembling a post team that could work independently and on a high degree of trust.
Then COVID-19 hit, and we moved to a fully remote workflow: daily virtual huddles and cutting sessions. The smooth transition and successful delivery were only possible because of the upfront work of building the right team.
We worked tirelessly to protect the integrity of each sport’s attitude — getting the tone, pacing, and music right for each one’s personality. One of our proudest moments came when the team from Rage Against the Machine saw a cut of the film and immediately agreed to provide the intro track.
What the world once wrote off as a fad now commands its biggest stage.
All Work