Former King's Lynn student helps transform Royal palace as Madness play on the roof to celebrate

The stunning visual effects created on Buckingham Palace during the Diamond Jubilee concert on Monday night were created by a specialist team including a Norfolk artist.

The huge front of the historic building dissolved before the eyes of a worldwide audience to become a terrace of homes, complete with dancing occupants, while Madness played on the palace roof.

And no one breathed a bigger sigh of relief at the success of the imagery than former College of West Anglia student Richard Barnett who helped create the visual spectacular.

'It came over really well and everyone seemed to like it,' he said.

The entire graphic was put together in 15 days and included hand-drawn elements as well as computer generated images and other media.

The shifting facade of homes was created specially for the Madness number Our House while a new set of love-heart-based graphics was projected for Must Be Love.

'The palace is 120m by 30m – it's huge. We had a rehearsal on Thursday to see how it all looked and if we had to adjust anything. Looking at the graphics on a computer screen was one thing, but we had to get the scale right,' he said.

The viewing public would also not have noticed the different textures on the palace which had to be 'ironed out' for the projections to look completely smooth and fluid.

'You are sitting in your studio and the next day the whole thing is going out in front of the world,' he said.

'We saw it all from out front, the best seats in the house, and it looked good,' he added.

The biggest thrill of the evening came when he was introduced to Sir Elton John who he has also created graphics for.

'We have worked on his $1m Piano Show in Las Vegas, but I had never met him before,' he said.

The biggest thrill of the evening came when he was introduced to Sir Elton John who he has also created graphics for.

'We have worked on his $1m Piano Show in Las Vegas, but I had never met him before,' he said.

Mr Barnett, 31, has a fine art background and is now a producer for Trunk Animation, based in London, which was commissioned to create the images for the concert.

He comes from Terrington St Clement where he attended the village high school before moving to Springwood school in King's Lynn and then onto the College of West Anglia. He studied art at university in London, where he lives, although his parents Rod and Jenny are still in the village where he grew up.

Mr Barnett said the Diamond Jubilee concert was the biggest project he had ever worked on and he was delighted with the results.

Mr Barnett's team has also been awarded a Bafta for their work with Newsround for a teen documentary called The Wrong Trainers.

Trunk team Rok Predin and Layla Atkinson directed Our House while Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney directed Must Be Love.