Star Turn. A film studio site that behaves like a film edit.

A website concept for a Manchester film and motion studio: the page is an edit timeline, and scrolling is the edit
A live playhead and real timecode, splice cuts between sections, and a real-time murmuration of 2,600 birds that lands on the wires as the picture locks
8.3 millisecond median frame time at full flock in testing; every text-over-film pair passes AA contrast from real rendered frames

Watch the walkthrough, 25 seconds Experience the live concept

The Turn: a real-time starling murmuration over a dusk Manchester skyline, mill and terrace silhouettes below

A studio concept by Hammer & Pixel

Star Turn is an invented brand. We build self-initiated concepts to show our approach where client work cannot: the brand is fiction, the brief is real, and so is every line of the build.

The brief

Design a website for a film and motion studio that sells finished films. It had to feel unmistakably custom and present motion work without the conventional portfolio grid. If the studio's product is the edit, the site should behave like one.

The concept

The page is an edit in progress. It opens mid-film and smash-cuts to the title card. A fixed timeline spine carries the sections as clips, a red playhead tracks a live timecode as you scroll, and sections arrive as splice cuts. The centrepiece is The Turn: a real-time murmuration of 2,600 starlings over a dusk Manchester skyline, scrubbed through four beats until the flock lands on the wires and the picture locks. The cursor is a hawk, and the flock answers it.

The specification

A film-led experience on desktop and phone
A cold open, gated to once per session
Timeline navigation with a draggable playhead and editors' J K L shuttle keys
Original film loops, lazily loaded
A real-time WebGL flock simulation
A complete reduced-motion version
A no-WebGL fallback with honest captions
Accessible navigation and visible focus
No templates, and honest concept labels on the page

What Hammer & Pixel built

The edit-timeline interface: proportional clip blocks, live timecode at 25 frames per second, and splice cuts that are velocity-gated so fast scrolling can never strobe
A spatial-hash flock simulation: 2,600 birds on desktop with depth of field, density ribbons and a wire roost. Press and hold, and you lead the flock yourself
Four original film loops, directed and loop-edited in-studio with generative production, each graded to the brand
Craft shown honestly: the same shot presented raw beside delivered, with a draggable grade wipe
Procedural murmuration sound, off by default, synthesised live from the simulation itself

Proof

8.3 millisecond median frame time with the full 2,600-bird flock in testing

Every text-over-film pair passes AA contrast, measured from real rendered frames at desktop and true phone width

The cold open, the splices and the film loops all collapse correctly under reduced motion; the flock becomes its roost still

Zero console errors on a full crawl of the page

Hand-coded. Raw WebGL2, no framework, no template

Desktop and phone stills

The Star Turn title card: condensed white capitals over a single spotlight on a hazy studio floor

The craft section: the same night shot presented raw beside delivered with a draggable grade wipe

The Turn mid-beat: the murmuration tightening over the dusk skyline, the timeline spine and red playhead below

The Star Turn title card on a phone, the timeline spine along the bottom edge

The roost on a phone: the flock landed on the wires as the picture locks

Walkthrough film

Experience the live concept

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