The Night Mail - Animatic (W. H. Auden)

An animatic of W. H. Auden's famous 'Night Mail' (1935), slightly abridged to my favorite moments within. This animatic took quite a while to do and took a lot of effort, but I am extremely pleased with the results!
Lyrics;
This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.
Dawn freshens, Her climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends,
Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes
All Scotland waits for her:
In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs
Men long for news.
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers' declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled on the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

[@guruprasadvkyou]

My guy started rapping bro 💀

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

1:35
Spunch Bop

[@__-jt4tv]

So many little details in this that make it an amazing piece, thank-you so much for sharing :D

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

Much obliged! This was for a college storyboarding class, and while it was only required to have basic sketches for scene outlines ("Gesture drawings") I couldn't be helped and got a bit carried away. Great fun, though.

[@freshwaterjerma]

SPUNCH BOP!

[@user-lw9si1sx2h]

This is the best version of The Night Mail 🙌🏻🔥

[@crackpie]

he know his rap dude

[@thegamesweplayvm4265]

How does this not have more views?? It's amazing.

[@Mr.RailYard-LJLRailYard]

Pretty cool night mail video

[@fishman501]

I love this, having just watched the documentary-film of The Night Mail.

[@JayaPahwa05]

This video should hit million. Touch wood✨

[@wherethespitfiredare9794]

Loved the addition of (I think) a Caledonian 782 at the end

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

Thanks! I was wanting to have a very distinctly Scottish looking thing next to it at Glasgow, and the front end of that one really fit the bill.

[@Ghastttt]

Wow 😮

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

Thank you!

[@abk2k3aaronkauflin83]

You brought alive my favorite rr poem fantastic job mate!!

[@Induxc]

Wonderful animation, respect the hard work put into this.

[@burningjdm]

good job mate

[@Redjintyman]

1:35
Ah hell nah spinach bop in nowspaper

[@sameriaarshad2526]

So deep

[@Redwoodtree34567]

My favourite poem, brings back childhood memories! was in 4th grade when first read this in literature class and since then I was in awe of this poem.

[@GettingBetterwGbaby5422]

Amazing work!

[@natek4488]

I love how the train looks done with everything.

[@TheGs4_4449]

I love how the locomotive looks annoyed for most of this.

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

The handrail across the front of the smoke box on a Royal Scot just makes it look irritable somehow. That, and the whistle just sounds truly livid.

[@Koji002]

Starts vibing instead od studying

[@bluesentaiproductions]

Truly happy to see this, I had thought up similar visuals when I thought about doing this on my other YT account but settled on doing it with Trainz and it was pretty limiting so glad you took the next big step of making this wonderful animatic. Keep up the great work you'll be doing 2d or CGI in no time

[@p28554]

underrated video

[@GopinathP.]

There is one more stanza
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Ceanston's or crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow,asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

[@gamerboyz8152]

🎉

[@veterangoon]

Top 10 rappers eminem is scared of

[@sarlayadav364]

My guy started rapping bro

[@ashrasarvarshaikh7653]

hell nahh scary at start but cinema

[@muktivishwakarma9080]

Last para!?

[@nikesb9420]

My teacher played this poem on the smart board

[@devilinstinct6611]

🇵🇹

[@stutterysteamerproductions875]

Any plans to make it into an actual animation?

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

I might! One idea I've had was to combine scale model trains and 2D cel animation, though I'm still figuring out the specifics.

[@jasminekaruna9529]

Say little slowly you are saying very very fast