| |
Gallery Description
: I first met Roger Waters in the spring of 1978, when he came to my house with the raw tapes of The Wall and played them to me. As I listened to his voice singing to a synthesizer, I had difficulty in imagining what the finished article would sound like. He was very clear at this point that he wanted it to be a record, a show and a film, and that the main characters, Pink and his wife, should be Punch and Judy. I started designing immediately and did many drawings of Punch and Judy until one day Roger reappeared and said, rather shamefacedly, "I've been thinking about Punch...I'm not sure it's a good idea". So Punch was scrapped and I started redesigning the new Pink. I eventually saw him as a vulnerable pink prawn-like doll.
For the concerts I designed a huge inflatable figure of Mother, which inflated slowly behind the band as they played. She had symbolic, wall-like arms, which could cradle and stifle Pink at the same time. We had three synchronized projectors, side by side, throwing images across the Wall we built across the front of the stage.
In order to convince MGM/United Artists to finance the film of The Wall, we filmed scenes during live concerts, which were specifically set up not for the audience but for the filming opportunities. We filmed a sequence of Roger singing 'Is Anybody Out There' behind the Wall, and the camera then tracked out and over the wall to show the screaming fans on the other side. We tried this three nights running, irritating the fans because of the heavy lighting necessary for filming. "You're spoiling a great scene, man!" I remember one fan shouting at me. Alan Parker was producer at this point, and he said he found the shot material unconvincing. There was a palace coup, and Alan became director. I became designer and director of animation.
As well as designing the animation for The Wall, I made drawings and storyboards for the live-action sequences. Relationships by this time were fraught: someone said, "What do you expect when you put three megalomaniacs in a room together?"
For the best and most up to date news on all things Pink Floyd visit the official web site - www.brain-damage.co.uk
|
