Richard Branson Relives Embarrassing Stunt-Gone-Wrong in Virgin’s Latest Animated Short Film

“Jumping off a building in Las Vegas might be my most embarrassing memory to date – but I can’t help smiling when I think back on that very windy day!”

Richard Branson has recently released another animated short story as part of his ‘Adventure Series’, produced by Paper Sky Films, with his latest addition: “Jumping Off a Building in Las Vegas.”

What was originally intended to be a surprise stunt to mark the event of Virgin America launching flights to Las Vegas, Branson sailed down the side of a tall hotel in a harness, yet fell too fast and ended up bouncing ass-first off the side of the building. 

Paper Sky Films teamed up with Virgin to create twelve animated short films, each telling individual stories following Richard Branson’s adventures.

“The team wanted me to jump off the side of a building to mark the occasion,” Branson writes in his blog, which has served as a landing page for all of the animations. 

“However, the wind was so strong and the building so tall, that I considered saying no for one of the first times in my life.”

Instead of dropping smoothly to the ground, Branson’s line got twist in the strong winds causing him to smash his backside into the building on the way down. 

“Richard wanted this one to be more comedic, so we brought on Joel Sulston to animate the project,” producer and director Adam Young explains. 

“Joel’s style very much reminds of Saturday morning kids’ TV, like Adventure Time, which manages to be simple, bright, colourful, cute and cheeky simultaneously. All of which suited the stories that leant more into comedy, slapstick and farce.” 

Even though the Las Vegas stunt went ‘bottoms up,’ Richard Branson still insisted on seeing the funny side of the story and that taking such risks don’t always pay off but they’re all learning experiences regardless.   

“Richard wanted all of these animations to appeal to kids, first and foremost,” Young explains. 

“But if we’re trying to make them laugh, then the artwork and the animation style has to suit that approach.” 

The finished animation uses a more ‘scrapbook’ cartoon aesthetic, where character outlines look like they were drawn with soft carbon pencils, bright binary colours that seem sourced for felt-tip pens and simplistic movements as though each frame is a page in a storybook. 

John Curran’s soundtrack incorporates Elvis Presley’s classic Las Vegas anthem, transitioning seamlessly from moment-to-moment, as though we’re hearing the music from inside Richard Branson’s head as his mindset evolves from surprised, to nervous, to complete reluctance, to the jump itself. 

“While it wasn’t smooth sailing, I’ve got no regrets - you’ve got to take a gamble or two in Vegas!” Branson writes.