This took a fair amount of post-processing once it was in Photoshop. The flights of starlings were created by taking a photo of a close up of a flock of starlings, removing the background, posterising the photo to make it simpler, and then superimposing it onto a pre-drawn background of Smith, Jones, railings and sea. Then the sound effects were drawn on top of that and outlined with a Photoshop stroke filter.

Actually, the starlings have left the pier – the removal of the burned out skeleton of the ballroom at the end of the pier means they no longer have anywhere to roost, so they’ve moved back to their old haunts on the remains of Brighton’s West Pier.