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CBC SPORTSMontréal → Milano Cortina / 2025–26

Style
of Play

What does your
inner athlete look like?

Eight conversations.
A wardrobe of possibilities.
AI clips for CBC’s Style of Play.

Watch the stories
An AI sequence surrounds Maïa Schwinghammer with flowing bright-pink colour.
Colour in motion
An imagined cream opening-ceremony coat with red maple-leaf detailing from Jennifer Heil’s episode.
Canadian by design
Ideas made visible / Frames from CBC’s edits
The brief

Personality.
In full colour.

CBC Sports asked Olympians to imagine clothing and visual worlds that expressed who they are. The answers went well beyond what they might wear to compete.

We worked with CBC to turn those ideas into AI image and video sequences for Style of Play. It began with an interview and green-screen shoot in Montréal, and continued through almost six months of development.

CBC created the finished videos, combining the conversations, archive material and our AI clips. The series appeared on Instagram and streaming television. The examples here are the supplied Instagram edits.

01 / The films

The athlete
writes the brief.

Hosted by Phylicia George.
Personal stories, imagined looks.
Eight CBC edits to explore.

01 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Maïa Schwinghammer

Painting with colour

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Maïa connects her painting with the way she skis. She describes a calm moment at the top of the course, followed by movement, expression and colour.

The imagined look

Paint-like ribbons grow around her, shifting from bright pinks and yellows into flowing purples. The imagined sequence translates her description of skiing and the northern lights into a moving visual world.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

02 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Laurie Blouin

Western, on snow

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Laurie talks about rodeos, horses, cowboy boots and her love of western clothing. Her imagined snowboard outfit draws on that personal history.

The imagined look

The AI sequence explores a brown western-inspired snow suit, pale decorative stitching, maple-leaf details and snowboard boots with the character of cowboy boots. Close-ups let the materials and small design choices tell the story.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

03 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Jennifer Heil

Wearing Canadian pride

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Jennifer reflects on memorable Canadian Olympic outfits and imagines an opening-ceremony look for Milano Cortina 2026. A sense of national pride shapes the design.

The imagined look

The imagined look combines a textured toque, a tailored cream coat, red details and shearling boots. Close views show topographic stitching and a maple leaf. These are visualised ideas, not an official uniform announcement.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

04 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Elizabeth Hosking

The childhood dream

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Elizabeth starts with comfort and the feel of her snowboard equipment. She imagines a colour-changing jacket and a board that honours the child who first fell in love with snowboarding.

The imagined look

An iridescent puffer jacket shifts through lilac, white and deeper purples. The finished look includes a personalised board with a childhood image. The visuals make her connection to her younger self part of the outfit.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

05 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Courtney Sarault

Symbols of strength

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Courtney describes a personal style built from neutral colours with distinctive details. For her imagined speed-skating suit, she chooses black and grey with pink, gold, a bee and a diamond.

The imagined look

The figure moves from a fragmented colour treatment into a dark suit with gold accents and a pink diamond on the back. The symbols express the confidence and resilience she wants to carry into a race.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

06 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Dawn Richardson Wilson

An inner force

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Dawn describes her preparation for a race: music, focus, confidence and an all-out commitment when it is time to push. Her language is physical and vividly imaginative.

The imagined look

Flames gather around her and form an enormous dog-like presence. Feet meet cracking ice; elemental textures shift around the portrait. The sequence moves from fierce energy towards the release and calm she describes after a race.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

07 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Shaquille Murray-Lawrence

Built for the push

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Shaquille talks about the force of a bobsleigh start, then imagines apparel that combines protection, warmth and personal style. His wish list includes body armour, a chrome helmet and rocket-powered footwear.

The imagined look

A futuristic black outfit appears with a reflective helmet and sculpted details. Close-ups reveal footwear with red-lit mechanical elements and flames. The sequence treats the athlete’s speculative ideas as a fashion concept.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

08 / CBC Instagram edit / ~90 sec

Cameron Spalding

Keep it simple

View CBC’s post ↗
Read this film’s story

The conversation

Cameron connects an uncomplicated approach to snowboarding with clothes that feel loose and comfortable. He talks through the jewellery and small details that carry personal meaning.

The imagined look

His imagined look brings together baggy white trousers, a pastel-purple hoodie and a black-and-neon-green snowboard. The finished figure keeps the relaxed silhouette and a few deliberate flashes of colour.

A written summary of the interview and visible sequence. CBC’s supplied edit includes on-screen captions and the original soundtrack.

Choose a story

Selected: Maïa Schwinghammer

Their words
set things in motion.

A childhood dream. A favourite pair of boots. The feeling just before a race. Each sequence starts with something the athlete actually said.

Instagram copies, presented at their supplied quality. Play with sound, follow CBC’s on-screen captions, or open the readable story beneath each film.

02 / Montréal, May 2025

It started
in a real room.

Interviews on one side.
Green screen on the other.
The raw material for what came next.

A Montréal shoot room with cameras, crew, interview lighting and a green-screen setup.
The room before it became eight different worlds.
Two people sit facing one another on the interview set, with a camera monitor and production lighting visible.
The conversation: finding the personal story.
A participant stands full-length in front of a green screen at the Montréal shoot.
The capture: a person, a pose, a starting point.

Listen first.
Then imagine.

The interview gave us the creative direction. The green-screen material gave us footage to develop into the AI sequences.

That connection mattered. The finished imagery needed to express the athlete’s own fashion ideas, gestures and sense of self.

Montréal
05 / 2025
03 / Before the polish

A few lines.
A whole idea.

Rough drawings, pose references
and wardrobe studies helped us
work out what the images needed to do.

A simple line drawing places a standing figure between small drawings of clothing and accessories.
01 / Put the idea on a page.
A greyscale planning image pairs a full-length figure with grouped clothing references.
02 / Give the figure a wardrobe.
A greyscale full-length figure faces forward with hands on hips, establishing a clear pose.
03 / Establish the pose.

The drawings don’t need to look like the final frame. They need to make the intention legible: who is in the picture, what they are wearing, and what needs to change.

From those simple starting points, we explored silhouettes, materials, colour and movement. The studies below are development material from the project, rather than a set of finished wardrobe designs.

Open the development notebook
A development board combines a portrait with illustrated outfits, fabric ideas and accessory references.
Wardrobe and material exploration.
An exploratory full-length figure in a blue and white sculptural outfit with sharp ice-like accents.
An exploratory silhouette.
A figure in a futuristic outfit stands inside a blue and magenta environment with interface-like graphics.
Colour and environment study.
A monochrome action drawing shows a figure extending a boot towards the viewer.
Planning the gesture and camera relationship.
04 / A moving target

The project kept going.
The models kept changing.

≈6

months of development

2

major model changes

Over almost six months, two major model changes reshaped how we made the work. The workflow that got us started was not the workflow that carried us through the whole project.

That meant revisiting the process as the tools evolved, while keeping the athlete’s idea at the centre of the image.

It is a useful snapshot of AI production at that moment: a broadcast project moving towards delivery while the methods behind it were still changing.

The people behind the pictures

A very human
production.

The team, together on set.
Montréal, May 2025.

The production group poses together on the interview set beneath a large studio light.
The group shot from the Montréal shoot.
The collaboration

Style takes
teamwork.

Interview-led fashion stories,
made with CBC Sports.

Client / series production & finished edits
CBC Sports
AI image & video development
Never
Host
Phylicia George
Distribution
Instagram & streaming television
Shoot / Games context
Montréal, 2025 / Milano Cortina 2026

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