'The magnitude of the project was huge and we wouldn’t have been able to deliver the Customer Information treatments we did without Jumbla’s assistance.'

Jessica Cronin, Customer Information Supervisor
Yarra Trams

Our social content for Yarra Trams

Trams are an integral and iconic part of Melbourne’s character. With 250 kilometres of track spread across the city, it's the largest urban tramway network in the world.

But with extensive reach comes great responsibility. When there are occasional changes to services, operator Yarra Trams must find effective ways to communicate with travellers.

This is why Jumbla was asked to produce an animation for maintenance work on St Kilda Road, which evolved into a more general public information video.

Convincing and compelling illustration

The video features simple yet true-to-life line drawings to help the viewer understand how service changes might affect them, which is reinforced by the main character’s typical tram journey.

Voiceover guidance and visual clues offer insight into where service information can be found - from social media updates, to staff presence at stations and on-tram announcements.

Trams and the surrounding landscape are virtually monochrome, while the details you need to be aware of, such as information leaflets and staff uniforms, are given bright flashes of colour for added impact.

The simple illustrations were well-suited to a project with a two-week turnaround. Jumbla's Creative Director Oz Smith said the simple style also helped with branding.

“There were a few different stakeholders in the video, so we had to be sensitive to all their messages,” he said. “We wanted to make it feel like the style could encompass Yarra Trams as well as PTV, while not being exclusive to either.”

In studio and on location

The illustrated characters and surroundings used to set the scene were brought to life using Cinema 4D and After Effects.

“We blocked the scenes together in 3D in Cinema 4D, using the 'Sketch and Toon' renderer to recreate the line style from the drawn illustrations,” Oz said. “Once the scenes and transitions were blocked out we added 2D animation on top of it in After Effects with some hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation created in Photoshop.

“We mainly used this hand-drawn technique on the perspective changes of our hero tram traveller.”

This project also allowed Jumbla to leave the studio for some on-location action, even if it was only up the road.

“As Jumbla is very close to the action at Domain Interchange, we went up there to record some tram noises to overlay as SFX,” Oz said.

Full Client Testimonial

"The magnitude of the project was huge and we wouldn’t have been able to deliver the Customer Information treatments we did without Jumbla’s assistance.

The project went smoothly operationally and we received a lot of positive feedback; both internally, externally and through social media, and our own customer feedback channels, about the quality of service and information that was delivered.

We really value the partnerships we have developed and strengthened with Jumbla, that have helped us deliver a really great result."

Jessica Cronin, Customer Information Supervisor
Yarra Trams