TfGM - Life on Oxford Road
The brief
In 2016 Transport for Greater Manchester were planning on changing the layout of one of the busiest roads in Europe, Oxford Road in Manchester.
It was being used by buses, private vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists and was bordered by many shops and businesses, reaching from the city centre to the famous ‘curry mile’ in Rusholme.
Changes were to involve restricting routes for private vehicles and adding physical structures to make cycling and walking safer.
This would cause disruption, long term change and possibly complaints from current users.
TFGM decided to appoint Kilogramme to create a film to show why these changes were necessary and how they would be beneficial to the city as a whole.
Living in Manchester and knowing Oxford Road, our initial assessment of the existing system was that it contained several types of user, all competing for the same space.
The fight was uneven, because pedestrians couldn’t compete with cars and cyclists couldn’t compete with buses.
It occurred to us that this could have parallels with a wildlife documentary, in which different animals compete for limited resources. The natural pecking order puts the larger animals at the top, but there is always sympathy for the smaller animals who have a more precarious existence as a result.
Using this analogy as a starting point, we decided to make a short parody of a ‘typical’ David Attenborough film. We would start with the discomfort of throwing a range of animals into one rather chaotic environment and end showing the benefits and tranquillity of a more ordered system, where they and the world around them could thrive.
No group would be vilified. We would only show how the current system could be improved and with it, the inhabitants’ lives.
The process
TfGM signed off on the idea and based on their information and also our knowledge of the area, we got to work drafting a script.
The script quickly took shape, the terpsichorean twirlers of the Dancehouse were one major casualty from the first draft but after a few iterations, the client was happy to sign off the final draft and equally delighted as we started to produce character designs from it.
Bears, crocodiles, puffins, ostriches, aardvarks and penguins were just a few of the menagerie we chose to populate the environment.
Based on the script, we drafted a storyboard and once we were happy with the way the story was planned out we edited together an animatic, set to a guide audio track.
Animatics are a great way of letting the client see how the film is going to work. They show the flow of the film, who is in shot, how it is framed, how each shot will play out and over how much time. It leaves little to the imagination, so cuts down on misunderstandings and is sometimes so good clients mistake it for the finished product!
With it and the designs in place, we were able to start animation. This began with rough artwork to make sure each character was moving as it should and once everyone was happy with the action, we then moved to the clean up and colouring stage
As the film was set in an urban environment, we decided to build the road and architecture as 3D objects, which the camera could move through and the 2D characters could be placed within.
Section by section, we built the set, added the animations, rendered it out and replaced each animatic shot with a finished one.
In the meantime, we sourced and recorded a professional David Attenborough soundalike and commissioned an original soundtrack to be composed.
The team
This was one of our favourite projects and the team involved were a large part of that.
Jon Turner acted as producer/director while Claire Grey acted as director/lead animator.
Heather Vogel supplied character designs
Kristian Duffy supplied backgrounds and support characters.
Jez Hall drafted the storyboard
Sam Jones, Tom Mathieson and Mair Doyle supplied 2D animation.
Max Brodie and Eloise Whitmore supplied music and sound.
Client relations
Our main contact at TfGM was Campaign manager Dan Bolton. He had the vision to see the film for what it was and what it could be and gave us the support to deliver to its full potential.
Regular updates sent to the TfGM team allowed them to see how the film was coming along and reassured them that the work was progressing as desired. We had staged signoff points throughout the production to ensure that everybody was happy.
The end result
The film was placed on TfGM’s Youtube channel and viewed 115,000 times. We think that’s pretty impressive for what we see as a local film about a cycle lane!
We were also thrilled to see life size cut outs of the characters in the TfGM offices and illustrations of the characters added to bus shelter timetables along the route.