Legendary Director and Photographer Mick Rock recently revisited the classic 1973 video for David Bowie’s Life on Mars for a new 2016 edit graded by The Mill’s Damien Van Der Cruyssen.
The Mill were proud to once again team up with Rock, after collaborating with him on the 2011 installation Life On Mars Revisited, to help breathe new life into the iconic film which features outtakes and raw footage from the original shoot.
Mick Rock comments, “I had the black and white segments, and when I came across that very last bit after the music stopped, I thought it was a little gift, so I made it into an epilogue. People like the original video, but I think this version takes it to another level. The scenes really add a new flavour for it. I’m really happy with it, and I’m interested to see what the fans make of it.”
Van Der Cruyssen comments, “It was a great pleasure to team with Mick again after our Creator's Project collaboration and to continue polishing Life On Mars. This was a really interesting challenge matching different film sources (color negative, color print and black and white work prints). Mick was really open to creative solutions in the face of our technical challenges, which led me to propose the use of fades to blend the color and black and white together, using the blue eye makeup as our main focus point. You’ll notice that the eyes always linger for a few more frames during the transitions.”
Read more about Rock’s collaboration with Bowie here.