3.5 years to be exact.

Assuming the person reading this doesn’t know me, I am a fan of the band 'Frightened Rabbit' - the enormous rabbit tattoo down my forearm is a dead giveaway.

Their music has always been a source of comfort and joy.

Sadly, Scott Hutchison, the lead singer, committed suicide in 2018. When Scott died I knew that I wanted to do 'something' but I had no idea what that 'thing' was going to be.
Roughly a year before then, the video for 'Roadless' was released and I loved it. I had no idea how it was made but 'maybe I could do something like that? How hard could it be?'

That was over 3 years ago.

Numerous failed attempts, lost files, computer crashes and months-long breaks between animation sessions have seemingly led to this.

There's roughly 3000 frames of hand-drawn animation in there - with many more thousands lost or discarded along the way.

The footage underneath is from a 1959 documentary called 'Once Upon a Tram' - it's about the ending of the tram service that used to run up and down the peninsula in Howth - the skeletal remains of which are still dotted about the hills.

My family have a long standing relationship with Howth and more than anything I made this for them.

The choice of colours and the rough frame by frame animation were an attempt to evoke the haziness of memory and time in a place that has a sort of 'mystical' quality.

If anyone is particularly interested in how it was made, here's a screen recording of the process.

The video above is sped up by 800%. This is how I drew over 4 of the aforementioned 3000 frames. If there's a quicker and simpler way of doing this, please no-one tell me.

I’d encourage everyone to take a look at the website for Tiny Changes, a charity set-up in the wake of Scott Hutchison's death by his family. The idea is to provide help and guidance to children and young people dealing with ill-mental health.

https://tinychanges.com/

The name of the charity stems from one of Scott's best known lyrics from the song 'Head Rolls Off'