Channel 4 have done it again. Set the difficult task of creating a promotional video worthy of the Paralympic athletes attending this year’s postponed Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the team at Channel 4 have succeeded.
2012 and 2016 saw two powerful videos released to promote the Paralympic Games in London and Rio and the video for Tokyo certainly stands up to the hype and anticipation that surrounds these adverts.
The three-minute long feature showcases Paralympic athletes, including Kadeena Cox, Ellie Simmonds, David Smith, Ali Jawad, Jody Cundy and many more. It focuses on the blood, sweat, tears, and pain that goes into training to be a Paralympic athlete. The graphic depiction of the hurt, injury and emotional challenges that the athletes go through are showcased perfectly and interjected with humour and character from the Paralympians themselves.
Set to Bugsy Malone’s ‘So You Wanna Be A Boxer’ performed by Jay Prince, and directed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young, the film shows the athletes at home, in training, in animated scenarios, competing, screaming, throwing up, bleeding, laughing and swearing. It is designed to make you wince, smile and question why anyone would put themselves through this form of torture to achieve their dream. They have succeeded in creating an advert that you can’t take your eyes off, despite it’s visceral and graphic imagery.
The final scene plays the message “To be a Paralympian, there’s got to be something wrong with you”, a witty play on words, followed by “Super. Humans” and the word “Super” being shattered like glass by a ball leaving “Humans” as the stand alone word remaining on your screen.
Channel 4 will be showing 300 hours of Paralympic Games coverage from 24 Aug to 5 Sept so you won’t miss a minute of the excitement of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
We can’t wait to get immersed in the Games and cheer on our athletes from our living rooms!
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