Before and during the competitions, the audience could see the central brand elements in the form of moving images. This design was set in stone before our appearance, and we already built on it during the group draws in November. It turned out during the European Championship, that we were extremely lucky to make the Drawing Ceremony too, as a lot of creative issues had already been finalized there, so now we just had to follow the well-trodden path. What made a difference was that the Diving Bell Spider came on the scene.
The Diving Bell Spider was the mascot of the European Championship, but its fate turned out to be quite a mess: a few weeks before the European Championship, his lame costume became an internet scandal. In the end, instead of creating a new one, the organizers rejected the idea of a dressed-up mascot one on one, so it was our task to make it appear digitally in as many places as possible.
Considering that the Diving Bell Spider was originally an animated character, this was one hundred percent the right decision. From here on, the question was where it should appear. Since the perimeter was always our favorite, we created a fairly general swimming through, which we then adopted for the large LED walls as well. The greatest experience in this regard was that day to day in the TV broadcast, one of the cameramen tried to follow the spider racing at a tremendous speed. When we first spotted this while watching the evening summary, we immediately slowed down a bit.
Since the Diving Bell Spider was a central figure, we wanted to give him several tasks, so the goal animation was created, which was played for each goal. Thanks to this, it ended up being by far the most played and most memorable animation for the audience during the entire EC. Unfortunately, since the replay of a goal was shown on television every time, the animation itself was not really broadcast, but the following example compensated us more.
By the second week, all the elements were pretty well in place, and one day we realized that we were running out of work. That’s when we decided it was time to add extras to the material. The most effective extra was the sprint animation. The concept was made possible by the fact that one of the LED walls was set lengthwise next to the pool, and the TV cameras were all located opposite it. Due to the critical location of the LED wall, it mostly showed the scoreboard, so we wanted to make it a little more exciting.
So, at the moment when the athletes jumped off the side of the track and began to swim wildly towards the ball, two Diving Bell Spiders did the same moving parallel to them. Since there was no way to know in advance which team would take the ball when they met in the middle, we masked the cut with a water splash. There was a problem with the length of the clip: the broadcast management software used during the match could not be burdened with unnecessary spectacle questions such as the Diving Bell Spiders picking up the pace of the competitors. So in the end, we downloaded all the sprints from a day of the previous EC from Youtube, measured them all, and then the figures swam the resulting average. The sprint animation was by far the most liked by the broadcast crew, and they adapted the recording of the match to it. Each match started with a big total, which also included the LED wall, it was followed by a gradual zoom on the ball, so that the spectators all over the world could see how the Diving Bell Spider worked hard above the players for a good result.
Overall, the 2020 European Water Polo Championship was a great experience and no less a challenge for us, which started a new chapter in the life of our team. We would like to thank event director Krisztina Kovács once again for believing in us all the way and giving us an unprecedented free hand.
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