Fan art for a film yet to be released – but obviously with a long legacy to live up to.
The first illustration above did the rounds nearly a year ago it seems, masquerading as concept art. Nice image in an intriguing ‘what if?’-type way and a decent illustration too.
The image to the left was made into a mock film poster using a similar illustration of the Space Jockey sans gun / steering wheel / whatever it is he’s sitting in.
Then there’s Midnight Marauder, whose tumblr is full of poster and DVD covers, both real and fake, for films like Prometheus, Alien and Aliens and Blade Runner. There’s so much good stuff on there, take a look.
Animated by Roger Mainwood (this post originally appeared on my old MySpace blog, July 2008)
I’m sure many of you will know that I am a major Kraftwerk fan and, whilst hunting out all manner of weird and quirky animation recently, I remembered the late seventies film made for the band’s 1974 hit ‘Autobahn’. If you haven’t seen this gem then see below, unfortunately of atrocious quality – heavily digitised and with washed out colours. It’s in a league of it’s own from a time sadly passed, all Pop Art imagery meeting the late seventies obsession with sci-fi, post Star Wars. It’s a real trip (in more than one sense) for ten minutes plus, and sticks out like a sore thumb in the retrospectively airbrushed history of the German four piece.
Originally commissioned by EMI for a laserdisc release that never appeared because the format didn’t take off as expected, it was then occasionally shown as filler on TV late at night or even during kid’s TV schedules in the eighties. I remember seeing it once or twice and not knowing what to make of it because it was so far removed visually from the image Kraftwerk had at the time. I filed it away in my mind until a few years ago when a random check on YouTube brought it back to my consciousness and a recent showing to my kids elicited squeals of delight at ‘the alien’, the flying lips and ‘Mr Nosey’ (check it, you’ll know what I mean).
I decided to find the animator, Roger Mainwood, primarily to find out if I could obtain a better copy but also to see if he had any of the original artwork to sell. A quick search gave me an email address and, as luck would have it, he had a tiny caché of images stored, a deal was struck and this fine image is now in my possession.
It’s actually two layers although there would have been four in the original image, a head on one, a small figure reflected in his goggles on another, but the background and flashing lights also reflected in the goggles have since been lost. I took the opportunity to ask Roger for more details about the project – his first commissioned film – and his impressions of the song:
Which studio made the film?
RM: Autobahn was made at the Halas and Batchelor studios in the late 1970s. John Halas, the producer, passed away some time ago but his daughter Vivien continues promoting the studio’s work and runs the Halas and Batchelor Collection.
Did you know the song or the band before the commission and did you actually like it once you heard it?
RM: As far as I recall Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’ was an unknown to me when I was presented with the project by John Halas. I think I found it an interesting piece of music but didn’t warm to immediately, although I did think it would be a good piece to animate some images to. I didn’t research Kraftwerk at the time, (we didn’t have Google in those days!). This was probably a good thing as I think I might have then tried to produce something that I thought would find favour with them rather than just going with some ideas of my own. Maybe Kraftwerk would have wanted something more mechanical and controlled than my psychedelic fantasy world that I conjured up. I acknowledge there are many nods to other animated works – The Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’ for example, and Ian Emes‘ films too, in particular his ‘French Windows’ which was animated to music by Pink Floyd. Neither of those two, I am guessing, would be on Kraftwerk’s favourites list. In case you haven’t seen it French Windows is on You Tube.
How long did it take?
RM: Always a difficult one that because I was fitting it in around other jobs that were coming into the studio. So the answer is on and off over what felt like a two year period.
What process was used to animate it
RM: It was all hand drawn on paper first and then line tested to check the movement, before being handed over to the paint and trace department. Xeroxing drawings onto cel was a technique used at the H&B studio but I thought most of Autobahn was hand inked. Maybe there was a mixture of the two techniques used. It’s a long time ago and I can’t recall exactly what we did. Looking at the monster cars cel, that definitely looks like a pen and ink tracing of a drawing onto the cel. Then the cels are turned over and painted using special animation paint. You had to wait for each colour to dry before applying the next. No wonder it took so long !
Was the film intended to be part of a collection alongside other Kraftwerk films or as just one part of a general EMI label compilation?
RM: My feeling was that it was a laserdisc of just our animated film.
Has it ever been officially available to buy?
RM: Autobahn hasn’t been available on DVD so far but Vivien was talking earlier this year about a possible release involving a French distributor. John Halas did do a deal with Polygram for a video release of Autobahn (together with another Halas and Batchelor film called ‘Dilemma’), and I managed to track down the front cover recently.
There are a few more images over in the Originals section where I posted about this last year. Also there are some pristine images from the film over at this site.
Here it is, the ‘rare’ one, if something digital could ever truly be such a thing. This mix was hosted at the now defunct Bosbos.net along with four others but the link to this particular mix corrupted and I’d get people emailing me to see why they couldn’t download #3. This is one of my favourites and I really slaved over it around Xmas 2004. I spent way too long online searching for a rip of the sketches from the Little Britain comedy show with the punchline, “Computer Says ‘No”, which I was determined to get into the mix somehow. A lot of electronica and hip hop in this one and some great versions of ‘Autobahn’, although the Fink listed isn’t the same Fink from the Ninja Tune label, but another.This originally appeared 17/01/05 on Solid Steel.
Kraftwerk Kovers Kollection Vol.3 by DJ Food
Alternative artwork: For the third volume of the Kover Kollection I did some designs based on the pocket calculator and then on the theme of the ‘Meet the Beatles’ sleeve, I wasn’t too pleased with the results so I changed them, these have never been seen before.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”290″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU&feature=share[/youtube]
‘Elektro Kinetik’ (Vertigo/Phonogram 1981) and ‘Exceller8’ (Mercury 1975) front and back covers – both mid seventies compilations drawing from various albums after ‘Autobahn’ and ‘The Model’ became hits. ‘Autobahn’(Philips 1975) was a double album using artwork from the ‘Ralf & Florian’ LP and music from several different releases. The ‘Kraftwerk’ double album (Vertigo 1973) pairs the first and second albums together with a beautiful sleeve.
Starting this week in 2000ad, the first in a new series by Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing – The Zaucer of Zilk – the first episode is very intriguing and reads like Alice In Wonderland in rainy run down Britain. Brendan’s art is on great form too and other good news is that Henry Flint is back on the current Judge Dredd epic which is one of the best in years.
UPDATE: You can preview the first episode for free online at the CBR website now.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”280″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXLzJhZa8PY&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]
An amazing collection of original posters from a collector who passed away is here
New CD version of the Daphne Oram compilation, images stolen from the Boomkat mailout, beauitful design and packaging. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, the original Oramics machine is on display at the Science Musesum in London with an interactive touch screen version of her ‘drawing on film’ method of composition.
Time for a repost: this lovely design was made by Stefanie Posavec, showing the length of cassette tape needed to record Kraftwerk‘s ‘Computer World’. Originally made as a one off for a friend’s club night she’s finally made them for sale.
It’s available as a 915 x 700mm 2-colour litho print (the yellow is fluorescent) on 300gsm, on Challenger Offset paper in a signed edition of 200. You can get it here and 25% of the profits go to the Ganet’s Adventure fund that helps a small primary school in Milawi.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/35720685[/vimeo]
Amazing video to advertise usegoodbooks.com. There’s a fun dig at Amazon in there too.
(59.4 x 420 cm, ink on paper).
I was recently lucky enough to win the original pencil sketch from a seller on eBay too…
(59.4 x 420 cm, pencil on paper – image is cropped down, the drawing is nearer A4 in size).
Original pencil and ink drawings for the cover of 2000ad Prog 1263.
Note from Kev Walker: “I blew them up on my printer, then drew the linework in ink. Then I scan the linework, and fill in the solid blacks on the computer and add any other stuff that needs adding. In Photoshop, nothing else.
They really should be classed as final pencils, because hardly anything changes from those. I draw at print size cos I find it easier to judge how much space I’m leaving for speech bubbles.”
Pretty excited about this release and it’s been a long time coming. This is the CD Promo version of the forthcoming DJ Food & The Amorphous Androgynous remix 12″ due out on Record Store Day (April 21st). The 12″ contains the 17 minute long Amorphous (hereafter referred to as AA) remix of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ featuring Natural Self, from my album ‘The Search Engine’. This will be split over two sides of the 12″, on multi-coloured vinyl and cut at 45 rpm for extra loudness.
The CD (which isn’t available in stores I’m afraid, although a download will cover most of it) contains radio edits of one section of the remix plus a shorter version of ‘GIANT’ featuring Matt Johnson from the aforementioned album. Exclusive to the CD and download is a beautiful ambient/acoustic remix of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ by 2econd Class Citizen which fitted perfectly into my ambient interpretation of the record at the London Planetarium launch party, he really took it to another place.
AA on the other hand do everything you expect and more, 17 minutes split into three distinct tracks: ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ (AA remix) is a madcap jam session, trampling the original track in the dust, ‘Don’t Pray, Don’t Bother (We’re Evil)’ takes the tempo to half time and grinds without mercy until ‘The Electric Images In My Mind (Never Die)’ ups the ante for full all out sonic battery. Natural Self‘s vocal is rephrased and twisted into a repeat refrain that keeps coming back for more over the last eight and a half minutes.
Taken all together they form yet another of the AA’s ‘Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble’ remixes, the likes of which have graced Oasis, Paul Weller and Pop Levi in the past. I’m very pleased to be added to that list and I’ll post pictures of the vinyl version and details of where you can order it as soon as I have them. The artwork is by yours truly with a little help from elements Henry Flint created for the album cover.
Just arrived – Electrical Banana: Masters of Psychedelic Art by Norman Hathaway and Dan Nadel – absolutely beautiful, with a forward by Paul McCartney no less, get a copy here…
After the first mix I had tons of material left over and, with some of the obvious covers out the way, it was time to up the ante. The opener of ‘Radio Activity’ played by the First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra (is there a second?) does that pretty well.
Rare live versions of ‘The Model’ by Lloyd Cole and The Balanescu Quartet featuring David Byrne crop up and we start to see the pattern of many versions of the track appearing, it’s by far their most covered song. I think this one is possibly my favourite of all of the mixes as it features some amazing versions of ‘Pocket Calculator’, silly spoken word and the abstract cover art.