This is a higher fidelity animated HTML5 sequence of the exclusive and collectable Hardly Strictly Bluegrass X11 festival poster improves the compressed MP4 in my gallery.
It is a look back at a complex photo comp I did, working with Claude Shade at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, whose memory is revered by many.
The image, showing a gang of rural musician types, with all their country
accoutrements in tow, arriving in San Francisco via highway 101 at the Golden Gate Bridge.
There was no way that the city would issue a permit to photograph or constrain such a critical road artery as this for static still or movie purposes. As such the actors and animals were comped and even the background scene had to be contrived to make up for basic shooting limitations.
Alas (only in sentimental terms), the Golden Gate toll bridge, a San Francisco
icon, is no longer an intimate shared familiar location, where people slowed to pay. Now replaced by autopay electronics – vehicles race past at speed and some of the contrived historic narrative of the poster has become actual documented history.
This necessarily low resolution animated sequence shows how the final image came together. It involved many separate photos – shot in different lighting conditions – finally blended into a coherent visual scene ready for the next stage of treatments.
We distressed the scene with a range of techniques, to give the whole thing a credible antique print texture at poster size. We had to extend way beyond just overlaying with paper texture.