The Album Art Studio That Made Pink Floyd’s Pig Fly

It tended to be Thorgerson, by all accounts a cussed genius, driving the file executives to apoplexy. “The greatest line about Storm was that ‘He’s a man who wouldn’t take yes for an answer,’” Mason mentioned. “It was almost inevitable that whatever was done, particularly by the record company, would involve Storm having to shout at them.”

Thorgerson, who died in 2013, may very well be confrontational with the musicians as effectively. “He didn’t care if it was Paul McCartney or Roger Waters, he would express himself quite vehemently,” Powell mentioned. “And often I would have to go around fighting the fires to maintain some kind of credibility. At the end of the day, it kind of worked because I managed to persuade the artists that it was the idea that was important. Forget about Storm’s personality.”

Corbijn mentioned that, in the end, the documentary was a “story of love and loss.” Hipgnosis got here to an finish on the daybreak of a brand new period, during which music movies dominated and compact discs, with their considerably smaller inventive canvases, turned the dominant mode of distribution. (Of course, as we speak most individuals see album artwork in miniature on their telephones.) Thorgerson and Powell, who have been transferring over to filmmaking, had a falling out over cash and didn’t communicate for 12 years after that. “It was like the end of a marriage,” Powell mentioned. The two reunited after Thorgerson fell sick; he died of most cancers on the age of 69.

In newer years, Powell mentioned, he’s been heartened to see that Hipgnosis’ album covers have damaged “that barrier to be taken seriously as fine art.” He added, “A lot of thought went into those pictures. We didn’t take photographs of the band and slap it on the front with their names big and the title in big white letters. This was work that was taken extremely seriously. And I hope that comes over in the film.”

Powell pointed to Hipgnosis’ cowl of Led Zeppelin’s ultimate studio album, “In Through the Out Door” from 1979, which concerned lovingly recreating an precise New Orleans juke joint in a studio in London. He indicated that making the album’s visuals (which, in any case that work, got here wrapped in a brown paper bag) possible value greater than it did for the band to file the music itself.

“You know,” Powell mentioned with fun, “that sums up the period of time.”