Light Up Leith History Mural
Leith, Edinburgh
Double Take Projections produced a unique outdoor projection event, by revitalising and animating Leith’s much-loved mural depicting the rich and varied social history of Leith. Over the past three decades, the quality of the artwork has decayed. Elements of the original art piece were all but gone. It raised the question “Should we be preserving and protecting street art; or should we leave it to decay?”. Our team was passionate to discover if there was a local appetite to preserve, restore, furlough or replace Tim Chalk’s and Paul Grime’s 1986 masterpiece.
The Light Up Leith History Projection Mural project stemmed from the Double Take Projections teams’ love for the mural and the desire to return it to its former glory. We partnered with ‘LeithLate’ to create a projection mapping show to feature in their ‘Leith 100’ events to mark a century since the portside community formally merged with Edinburgh.
As a result of being exposed to the elements for over 30 years, the mural has fallen into disrepair. Large sections are wholly faded and resigned to memory. Conscious of how much the mural means to the local community, we wanted to project the original mural back onto itself while adding our animated twist – bringing the painted characters and scenes to life.
The Double Take Projections creative team met with the murals’ artists, Tim Chalk and Paul Grime, to discuss ideas for the projection mural. We were kindly welcomed along to Tim’s studio to view the original drawings and plans for the mural and hear first-hand the stories attached to each of the depicted scenes. After sourcing an old image, taken shortly after completion of the mural in 1986, we used an AI-based tool to scale the image up to an 8k resolution which acted as the foundation of the animation.
Making Of: Light Up Leith History Mural
Before the Double Take Projections team could begin animating, there were a few steps. Each character, and all the components that made them up, had to be meticulously cut out in Photoshop with the background painted-in. We created simple character rigs in After Effects. To add visual interest to the sections without characters, we digitally painted-in elements like lighting, shadows, flickering lights, welding torches and fire etc. We wanted all of the intricate aspects of the large-scale mural animation to be working in unison – creating an immersive looping show where viewers could dip in and out – seeing something different every time they looked.
An ambient soundtrack was sourced and paired with sound effects track that we produced using audio samples from dockyards, street ambience, pipe bands etc. – helping the animation to feel like a window into the history of Leith.
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Client: Double Take Projections Passion Project
Location: Leith History Mural, Leith Theatre, Edinburgh
Date: 8th February 2020 & 25th September - 4th October 2020
Project Partners: LeithLate, Tim Chalk, Paul Grime
Projector Spec: 1 x PT-RZ21K 21,000 Lumen Laser Projectors,
Location: Leith History Mural, Leith Theatre, Edinburgh
Date: 8th February 2020 & 25th September - 4th October 2020
Project Partners: LeithLate, Tim Chalk, Paul Grime
Projector Spec: 1 x PT-RZ21K 21,000 Lumen Laser Projectors,
2 x PT-RZ970K 10,000 Lumen Laser Projectors
