LipSync Post provided full post-production services for BBC One’s Great Train Robbery dramas that mark the 50th anniversary of the notorious heist. The first, A Robber’s Tale, directed by Julian Jarrold (The Girl, Appropriate Adult), follows the story of gang leader, Bruce Reynolds. The second, A Copper’s Tale, directed by Broadchurch’s James Strong, follows DCI Tommy Butler and his quest to bring the robbers to justice.
LipSync’s visual effects team, led by VFX Supervisors Ben Shepherd and Leo Neelands, completed around 40 shots across the two programmes. The key scene in the Robbers drama involved rebuilding a period version of Euston Station from scratch with a steam train added. The team also created complete CG versions of the crucial railway signals that were tampered with by the robbers, and removed April snow from what was supposed to be an August day.
The Coppers drama features a virtuoso piece of VFX, involving a continuous circular shot of the courtroom, created with around 11 plates and green screens to fully populate the room using a limited number of extras. The team also created an effects transition from a café to a Tube station, with a key character looking at a painting that morphs into a Tube map. Other shots in the piece include green screen car windows with period cars composited in.
LipSync’s graphics team created two very different title designs for each film. For A Robber’s Tale, the title sequence needed to set the style of the period and hint that the criminals, imagined themselves as a cool ‘rat-pack’. The flashy sequence introduces the key players with a montage of heavily colour-graded shots, with a mixture of original and archive material.
A Copper’s Tale took a more traditional approach with a full-frame cut sequence to introduce the film, making the titles feel like they were integrated into each scene with effects transitions between the shots. Art direction and design were by Howard Watkins with additional design, animation and comping by Simon Edwards and Julia Hall.
Producer Julia Stannard, who previously worked with LipSync on United and Falcón, said, “LipSync has once again done an incredible job, on time and on budget, to help bring to life this key event in British history.”
LipSync Post is located across two sites on London’s Wardour Street. Recent credits include film projects Starred Up, The Invisible Woman, Byzantium, and Broken. Projects for TV include Death Comes To Pemberley, Dancing on the Edge, The Sparticle Mysteries, Falcón, Leonardo and Hidden.
