Guest Lecturer- Andy Earl

Andy today came to discuss one of his major projects; The video for the rolling stones; ‘Like a rolling stone’. 

He was commissioned to work on the set after production managers saw his early work from college, where he would work with a large format camera with 3 separate flashes. This method resulted in the foreground of the image being caught with the flash and the background had a motion blur due to the long exposure of the image. 

The director of the video working with Andy was Michel Gondry who had a very futuristic take on photography. They worked with BUF editing who edited the whole video together. 

The video was based on friends of the rolling stones who were into drugs. It was shot entirely using still images-(around 12,000 were shot) and they were put together to create a video. Andy shot using 2 cameras simultaneously; using massive bulb flashes as the only light source. By shooting the same frame twice but at slightly different angles it made the warping process easier and able to flow more. 

The process of merging the images together was called warping, later into morphing and bullet time, and the same aspects and basics of the technique are used in films like the matrix. 

What I really liked about andy and his lecture was that it demonstrated how we can be ‘discovered’ through our work we produce even now; and how we can have a signature method which can be identified. 

The link for 'Like a rolling stone', covered by the rolling stones, shot by Andy Earl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYokc3VBC4 

Some other examples of Andy Earls work, include many portraits of the likes of Johnny Cash, Robbie Williams, Liam Gallager, HRH Prince Charles and Wilko Johnson.