Back in June, we advised that Taken By Storm, the superb, indepth film about Thorgerson's life and
work as told through his own reflection, his personal archive of
never-before seen photographs and films, through ex-partner of Hipgnosis
Aubrey Powell, and through first hand narratives from some of the most
important musicians of our time, would finally will see a DVD and VOD release later this year.
Roddy Bogawa, the man behind the film, premiered it on the opening night
of 2011’s prestigeous SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, USA, in front of
Storm himself, and has refined the film since then. The following year
it was shown in New Year (our review and thoughts on the film here),
and more recently there was a screening at London's Olympus-Rockarchive
Image Space Gallery, hosted by Rupert Truman. Roddy explained that
"it's really a film about Storm's creative processes from the Hipgnosis
days until now and his relationships/friendships with all the musicians
and bands he's worked with through his four decades of making album art.
There are interviews with David Gilmour and Nick Mason, as well as
Robert Plant, Peter Gabriel, Graham Gouldman, Alan Parsons [and others],
as well as Storm's many collaborators, assistants, etc. including
photographers Tony May and Rupert Truman, Jill Furmanovsky, and artists
Damien Hirst and Sir Peter Blake. The film goes beyond talking about
Storm's relationships and creative processes in visualizing music; it is
also about how technology has changed our lives, especially the digital
realm in music and also the disappearance of vinyl and other physical
objects".
He noted that it explores numerous covers and their creation and there's
a lot of material from Storm's archives that has never been seen
before. The official, full trailer for the film has now been released and can be seen below. There
are plans for a theatrical release and screenings with planned events
along with the aforementioned DVD and VOD releases. Information on the
release will be here on Brain Damage, as well as on the takenbystormfilm.info website, and their Facebook page too.