Michael Elins: Cover Story
Tickets to the party celebrating Rolling Stone magazine’s 1000th issue, with The Strokes playing at Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, were a near impossible get.
But getting into the party was nothing compared to getting on the cover of the 1000th issue, a 3D composited collage of the magazine’s ultimate A-list that included a hundred or so musicians, politicians, athletes, and culture heroes chosen to represent and evoke the first 39 years of the publication’s existence.
Acting as gatekeepers were Rolling Stone’s founder and editor Jann Wenner, whose idea it was to do a lenticular cover (a 3D effect achieved by feeding multiple sheets into a printer), and art director Amid Capeci. “It was like coming up with the ultimate party list,” says Capeci. “Some people are going to get in, some are not. And some of those who are out are out by just a very fine line, unfortunately. But we’re not naming names.”
For any luminary who survived the cut, the next step was a quick and easy jump into magazine history, thanks largely to the unique skills of photographer and illustrator Michael Elins, hired by Capeci to design the milestone cover.
Capeci was more than familiar with Elins’s abilities. For a previous Rolling Stone cover, Elins had photographed American Idol judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, as well as host Ryan Seacrest, in separate studio sessions and then digitally deposited them into the same bed, a nod to the 70’s movie “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.”
“Michael was perfect for this anniversary cover,” says Capeci. “Not only because he had the technical proficiency to pull it off, but because he could understand the world of Rolling Stone and create the cover environment, which in some ways was more important than the people that were going to be in it. We knew who was going to be on the cover, but what world were they going to live in?”
Industry Change Maker
Creating a totally credible digital world for a magazine cover is a virtual snap for Elins. In his studio in Los Angeles, he photographs celebrities and then works the images in Photoshop on a Power Mac G5 until they satisfy the editorial or commercial needs of his clients. Sometimes he uses straight photographic images; other times he alters them to fit a particular concept.
“I think that any time you change an image to satisfy some kind of aesthetic, it becomes more interesting, much as any individual signature is really interesting,” says Elins. “Why do we need autographs when we can just have someone type out Joe Dimaggio? We want that personal thing. So the more we change these images, the more interesting they get.”
Sketchy MO
For the Rolling Stone cover, things got interesting very quickly. After he, Wenner, and Capeci established loose parameters for the cover concept — 3D, Sergeant Pepper, iconic figures on a stage — Elins reached immediately for a pencil. “I was a designer and illustrator before I got to photography,” says Elin. “So I do sketches before I do any of my projects. This time, I did the sketches and imported them into Photoshop. Then I made a layered file so that I could turn layers off and on to suggest the lenticular effect.”
After showing his initial sketch to Wenner and Capeci on his PowerBook, Elins carefully revised it to conform with their evolving vision. “As best I could, I tried to channel Jann, so that the cover image would be an accurate rendering of his vision,” he says. “More than anything, I wanted it to be his picture.”
Even in the early sketches, Elins added touches that survived into the final version, such as elements inspired by 15th-century religious allegories. In fact, the two sketches that Elins produced ended up being very close to the final cover design, even though he didn’t know then how many people would be included in the final cover.
“I asked for a list of who’s in the first row,” he says. “Then I said give me you’re A, B, C lists.” From these lists, Elins eventually sketched out detailed elements for the entire scene down to a presiding angel (Kurt Cobain) and devil (Hunter Thompson).
Iconic Photos
As the final “guest list” developed, the Rolling Stone staff did extensive photo research looking for optimal photographs that Elins could import into the composite. “You can get a picture of Bob Dylan that doesn’t look one bit like Bob Dylan,” says Elins. “But for this piece that wouldn’t do. The Elvis needed to be the Elvis you see if you dream about Elvis. Same for Hendrix, Madonna, Aretha Franklin. They all had to be iconic pictures.”
Elins also held a one-day photo shoot to capture missing photographic elements, including the crowd scene in front, the stage and the curtains, which were created just for this project, and body doubles for wearing the angel and devil costumes.
