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Gaulês is a well known character in the Counter Strike universe, not only in Brazil, but around the world. As a kid, Alexandre grew up in the East Side of the city of São Paulo, and the first sport he took a chance in, like most Brazilians, was football.

Highly competitive and dedicated, Alexandre gained ground as he took his first steps towards a football career, even making his way into youth academies with a few of the city’s clubs.

However, a knee injury forced the teenager to abruptly interrupt his journey in the sport.

 

Feeling his plans for the future were over, Gaulês was invited by a few friends to visit a Lan House. It was a sensation at the time. You and your friends playing online video games. Those who lived their youth in the 90s and early 2000s experienced the Lan House boom across the nation. Computers connected to a high-speed network with multiplayer games installed.

 

That was when young Gaulês was introduced to his newest passion: Counter Strike.

 

Alexandre needed a nickname to play, so he brought to the game his field name from when he played football: Gaulês. With a highly competitive personality, what was once an unpretentious game, became part of his routine. Gaulês grew exponentially in a scene that took its first steps towards being recognized as a sport.

 

Alexandre, having the spirit of a leader, became captain of the first professional Brazilian Counter Strike team, where he competed and won tournaments in Brazil and around the globe.

Years later, he endured severe depression, which pulled him away from his sport once again. Closed up in his bedroom, he started going live on Twitch and slowly gained notoriety for his talent as a Counter Strike match narrator, which brought him a legion of followers that undoubtedly contributed to his recovery.

Nowadays, Alexandre “Gaulês” Borba is one of the biggest names when it comes to Counter Strike, and along with his Tribe he carries the message of the importance and relevance that e-sports have for sports and the world of entertainment.

After taking a deep dive into Gaulês’ story, our challenge was finding a way to synthesize the whole thing in a 60 second film. Gaulês’ life phases were many. That was our starting point on which to base the narrative: How to tell many stories in a short time?

We decided to split our narrative in 3 life phases for our character. This led us to create little boy Gaulês, teenage Gaulês, and adult Gaulês.

With a structured script in hand, we started thinking about how we could create such a fast passage of time in our film. The solution we found was to create transitions which would bring a continuous shot feel. Initially we wanted to create some form of timelapse of his life. However the narrative required some curves, highs and lows, turnarounds and achievements, just like his life actually was. Then, on top of this, we added smart scene transitions which automatically took us from one era in his life to another, sometimes changing the scenery, sometimes changing the character’s anatomy. This allowed us to navigate his timeline in a very dynamic way.

 

Another challenge we had was the short deadline for the project. So, we opted for creating a more paced animation, sometimes saving on movement, other times using surplus movement, counterbalancing the quick-action editing. Such balance in the animation flow brought in the expected result: an intense and emotional trip, watching closely this exemplary guy’s hits and misses along with his tribe.

Our idea was that the art direction should communicate with the passage of time that we attributed to the film. The scenery should convey not only the aesthetic feel of the time, but also how the character feels.

In the beginning, for example, hot colors remitting to 90s lowland football. Halfway through the movie, we have dark colors which connect to the character feeling lonely and depressed, locked in his bedroom where the only light was his distant computer screen.

Finally, vivid colors representing his turnaround as he went live endlessly on Twitch, until taking another giant step into the horizon together with his tribe.

Credits

Executive Producer

Ito Andery

Account Manager

Karima Ruhmann

Account Assistant

Letícia Pugliesi

Directors

Gustavo Leal e Faga Melo

Head of Production

Jéssica Sales

Line Producer

Ana Paula Godoy

Storyboard

Felms

Animatic

Jefferson Lima

Art Director

Felms

Illustrators

Bernardo França, Bruno Guma, Igor Pizzuto, Opala Rosa Choque, Vencys Lao and Will Fernandes

Animation Director

Jefferson Lima

Traditional Animation

Danila Ribeiro, Gabriel Chagas, Geovani Angelo, Guilherme Galva, Lucas Franci, Rafael Almeida and Robson Menezes dos Santos

Clean up

Amanda Belo, Ana Carolina Gonçalves, Danila Ribeiro, Diones Ignacio, Fernando Rangel, Geovani Angelo, João Maurício Batista, Lucas Franci, Original Junin, Rafael Almeida

Head of Compositing

Caique Moretto

Compositing

Gustavo Miaciro, Larissa Garcia and Ricardo La Bella

Audio production Company

Jamute