The David Carson lecture and book signing for 'Fotografiks' took place yesterday evening at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, which we mentioned on October 28th. Fortunuately, an SLS viewer named Phil Jackson attended the party and wrote SeemsLikeSalvation News the full scoop.
David Carson arrived around 6:30 pm, with approximately 80 people in attendance. Carson began the program "with a slide show of some of his work including several images from his new book, 'Fotografiks,'" explains Jackson.
"When showing the cover and promo postcards for Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, he mentioned to the crowd that there really is no band, that Trent Reznor makes every sound on the album," which as you all know is not entirely true, "and that for concerts he hires a band to learn the album," explained Jackson after listening to Carson speak about NIN.
He said that NIN has one of the best and most recognizable logos in the music industry, and that's why he chose to play with it for the cover, covering half of it and removing the box around the letters (as on the postcards).
He also showed a slide of the "9.21.99" retail promo poster. He showed several more slides from "The Fragile," including the back cover, the booklet cover, and the open CD case design. When he showed the actual CD's in the case, he mentioned that they are labeled simply "left" and "right" and that they are rather bright for NIN discs.
He said that the point of that is that five years later (since "The Downward Spiral"), this is not the same Trent we knew, and that if he used the same type of design NIN had in the past, that would have been a mistake (At the time, David was toying with making the discs a solid blue to contrast nicely with the deep orange packaging). He said that he presented the flower images that were finally used on the discs to Trent along with some images that were not his, to see what Trent liked, and he went for the flower motif.
He then showed a few pages from the lyric booklet. He said that he asked Trent to go through the lyrics and highlight certain lines that he felt were important. These became the lines that David emphasized in the layout.
He showed a slide of the LP cover and mentioned that he found it difficult to work so large. More slides followed of some web design, Raygun magazine, and a few other projects.
He showed a video with some television commercial work (Nike, Citibank, etc.), his first music video, and some assorted video work, including an MTV "The Fragile" promo that was primarily made up of still shots from the record design.
As the music plays in this spot, and Trent's vocals begin, the image cuts to a shot of Trent's mouth as he sings (live) the remainder of the lyric without the music playing. The song is, for those who saw the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9th, "The Way Out Is Through." He shot the Trent scene in a closet with a Hi-8 video camera. They had only 2 days to make the commercial.
Also on the tape was something new and incomplete that he's been working on for Trent. It is a film to be used during the concerts for the new tour (like "Hurt", etc. on The Downward Spiral tour) for 3 songs. He said that it's about halfway done right now. The theme is water and drowning ("Drowning in a good way" according to Trent, he said). The first song would be soft, the second medium in intensity ("The Great Below"), and the third stronger in intensity.
So he played the footage for the second part, which was "The Great Below." All footage of water and waves and underwater imagery and some coral. Very slow moving and dreamy. He got the footage from 3 friends whom he felt are some of the best surf filmmakers around. He asked them for footage they took that they were unable to use on other projects because it just didn't fit. He then assembled the footage into what we will be seeing during the concerts. He then took questions from the audience for a while, and then began the book signing.
Thanks ever so much to: Phil Jackson for writing us!
