The art & design of al stokes

THE THE ART ART and and DESIGN DESIGN of of AL AL STOKES STOKES 2003 - 2013

front cover illustration: animation frame taken from Al Stokes’ film “Mindscapes,” lost forever in a terminal hard drive malfunction, 2004 AL STOKES was born into an era of steam trains, when there was a King on the throne & rationing and brought up in Greenford, Middlesex (UK). He escaped a poverty stricken background and, in that wonderful year of 1967, appeared in Anne Jellicoe’s stage play “The Rising Generation” at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

In 1968 Al joined the BBC Film Department as a trainee at Ealing Studio. After five years, learning the craft, Al left to go freelance as a film editor and eventually, after a series of strange misadventures which included a spell as war correspondent, he became a film director.

In the 1990s Al went back to acting and appeared in a number of Hollywood films, TV dramas and MTV promos.

Claim to dubious fame: Al was the screaming creature in Chris Cunningham’s 1997 “Aphex Twin, Come To Daddy” promo.

In 2002 art school beckoned for a late degree to upgrade his analogue film making skills to digital. He got a 2:1 which led to a career change into art and design in the motion picture industry and, later, writing & designing illustrations for the web histories.

“People keep telling me I’ve had an interesting life. I’ve always taken that to mean I’m an unemployable hippie who has lived too long. Anyone calls me a hippie, I’ll nut ‘em.”

Deadline?

Nobody told me owt about a chuffing deadline!

Al Stokes, July 2013

List of Illustrations can be found at the back of the book

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Inside Cover: DEADLINE POSTER which came about as a result Pages 11-22; LIGHT FALLS, a series of animation frames for a of too many promo directors missed their deadlines, the poster Throlley Men band promo. was meant as a joke but actually concentrated peoples’ time awareness wonderfully. It worked!

Page 23; ON THE BUS, a Trolley Men promo animation frame.

Page 01: DREADY BOY multi-media, I cut my deards off in 2010 because they kept flopping in my eyes on-stage with prog-rock band The Trolley Men. These are they.

Page 02: BOLTS photo taken on the beach between Sheringham & Cromer, 2003, with the background rendered in b/w and the bolts retained in colour.

Page 03: DUMPED photo taken with Ilford b/w of a trashed, abandoned car on the waste ground of a former mansion in Thorpe Road, Norwich. The truly amazing part being there was absolutely no vehicle access to the site. The driver must have driven the car up a flight of narrow pedestrian steps.

Page 04: FLIGHT HENGE multi-media, part of my 2005 graduate movie prep’ background to an animation sequence, meticulously exhanging parts of a Boeing 247 aircraft for the stones of Stonehenge. On a music cue all the parts would fly away but my art tutors insisted it couldn’t be done so I didn’t do it.

Page 05: BUSTED a single frame taken from an animation test film.

Page 06; NIGHT MAIL a pecil effect drawing of a loco photographed at Sheringham Station, July 2011.

Page 07; MODEL EXHIBITION animation frame which involved five movements in shot.

Pages 24-26; THE TRIP, Trolley Men promo animation frames.

Pages 27 - 32; GREENLAND MELTS, a work in progress series of large panels on the subject of climate change.

Pages 33-37; BUNKER film set designs.

Page 38; ROUTE MAP original design for the Norwich Electric Tramcar Company, circa-1905.

Pages 39-42; NORWICH TRAMS designs based on the original company plans.

Page 43; NORWICH CIITY STATION based on the 1922 layout design.

Page 44; FASTNESS OSTEN, a fantasy post apocalypic mountain stronghold.

Page 45; FASTNESS NORD, a fantasy post apocalypic mountain stronghold.

Pages 46-50; RAILWAY LAYOUTS a series of large panel multi media panels of model railway layouts, to be mulled over trying to figure out why all the lines go, for stress relief purposses.

Back Page: RUPERT’S SOLSTICE a multi-media poster sent out as a Solstice car to clients.

Pages 08-10; BEFUDDLEMENT is a series of animation frames for an anti-drug animation.

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oOo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS with grateful thanks to; Norwich HEART who gave me such amusing and diverting history research to work on.

Ian Laxton who showed me how to work this new PC. Mike Goddard to services to dreadlocks. and to all the people who encouraged, fed and watered me during the time it took to get this book together.

COPYRIGHT all the pictures in this book are the sole copyright of AL STOKESŠmmvii and must not be copied, scanned, re-photographed, kept in a library, analogue or digital, cut out and pinned to your wall or in any way nicked.

Miscreants will be pursured with extreme zeal and savagery as far as the 1988 Copyright, Patents & Designs Act allows to contact Al Stokes go to: www.facebook.com/Thetrolleymen