Speed and drama may not be the first adjectives that leap to mind about curling but that could all change with this fun and frosty CG work from the team at The Operators Creative in London for the sport’s world governing body.

Ben Le Tourneau, director/producer at The Operators Creative: “We knew we wanted to push the sport further than anyone expected. We saw an opportunity to make it feel thrilling, cinematic, and even inspire people to grab a broom and give it a go.

“The creative challenge was cranking up the tension without losing the sport’s essence. We wanted every frame to feel like a battle between control and chaos: stones crashing like asteroids, brooms tearing across ice, and frozen surfaces almost breathing under pressure.
 

“In the end, it came down to good old-fashioned hands on craftsmanship, pushing our pixels around the screen, dialing in the drama, and having a giggle doing it.”

 
“On the technical side, we used Houdini’s sim magic (to build glacial textures, flying frost, and rock impacts) with a splash of AI that helped speed up look dev, fast-tracking icy palettes and kinetic ideas, but the myth of a-few-clicks-and-done quickly faded.

“Getting exactly what we wanted meant plenty of human tweaking (and patience) but it allowed us to rapidly prototype ideas without sinking days into R&D dead-ends.

“In the end, it came down to good old-fashioned hands-on craftsmanship, pushing our pixels around the screen, dialing in the drama, and having a giggle doing it.”

Watch the process reel:
 

 
 

 
Client: World Curling

Production: The Operators Creative
Director/producer: Ben Le Tourneau
Head of Digital: Alex Cassels
CGI artist: Juan Viamonte
Creative: Scott Freeman

Sound: Benjamin Hudson