Double Dummy

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Inside the world of competitive bridge
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Double Dummy is a documentary ﬁlm about the competitive world of youth bridge. Director John McAllister needed a way to visually communicate the complex rules, gameplay and strategies that go into tournament style bridge.

Visual Development
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We developed a visual language that could be simple enough to educate new audiences but detailed enough to honor the intricacies of the game. We developed three categories of animations.

Explainer: Clearly describe rules and objectives in a visually engaging way.
Gameplay: Cameras were not allowed to film the actual game board so we needed to communicate the play-by-plays.
Tournament: Track Team USA’s progress throughout the tournament.

Explainers
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Script to storyboards to animation.

ANIMATED SEQUENCE
JOHN (V.O)
Unlike in poker players don’t bid money. They bid to determine which suit is the most valuable. This is known as the trump suit. A trump will win against any other suit. So even a 2 of trump will beat the ace of different suit. Players use bidding cards to represent their bids. Bids give information about their hand allowing the partnership to figure out how strong their combined hands are and which suit to bid as trumps(Example of this communication is animated and demonstrated)?1 Club - Pass - 1 Heart - Pass -1 No Trump - Pass- 3 No Trump
JOHN(V.O.)(CONT'D)
The higher you bid the more tricks you need to take(The bid to trick conversion +6 is demonstrated)Bidding scale: 1NT means you can win 7 tricks which is 1 more than 6. 2NT means you can win 8 tricks which is 2 more than 6 And so on.
JOHN(V.O.)(CONT'D)
If you succeed this is known a making your contract and can lead to a hight score.(We see rewards of bidding high and making your contract)But if you fail the bigger your opponents score

Gameplay
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A visual play-by-play of a match.