In 1972 on the Burbank studio film lot in Los Angeles, Storm Thorgerson and his design partner Aubrey Powell of the famed company Hipgnosis set a man on fire creating one of rock and roll's most iconic album covers: Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. For over forty years, using 12" x 12" album covers as his canvas, Thorgerson has produced some of the most visually arresting images in popular culture - Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy - relentlessly pushing the boundaries between art and commerce. Spurning hi-tech manipulation in his quest to "do it for real," Thorgerson has created some of the most enigmatic images in the music industry, often building site-specific sculptures or tableaus, or staging performances and photographing them live. Taken by Storm: The Mind Movies of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis is a film about Thorgerson life's work as told through his own reflection, his personal archive of never-before seen photographs and films, ex-partner of HIpgnosis Aubrey Powell, and through first hand narratives from some of the most important musicians of our time: David Gilmour and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Robert Plant, Peter Gabriel, and more recent collaborations with Scottish group Biffy Clyro, Rob Dickinson of Catherine Wheel, Dominic Howard of Muse, Cedric Bixler Zavala of The Mars Volta and many others as well as the numerous photographers, illustrators and assistants who have helped execute the work from the days of Hipgnosis to his new company StormStudios. Taken by Storm documents Thorgerson's idiosyncratic artistic process (i.e., dragging 765 iron beds onto a beach for Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason) and also explores how one of the most powerful image-makers in rock and roll transcended the constraints of commercial marketing to realize his unique artistic vision, creating a powerful visual legacy that resonates throughout contemporary culture.
| Directed by | Roddy Bogawa |