Previously unreleased footage of David Bowie striking some “iconic movements” for a piece of 3D album artwork has been unveiled by Leicester’s De Montfort University’s archives.
The footage, which was filmed by the late artist’s friend and collaborator Professor Martin Richardson, was screened publicly for the first time at an event at Leicester’s National Space Centre last week.
Richardson, who was friends with Bowie in the 90s, collaborated with the artist on creating 3D versions of the insert photo for his 1999 album Hours. Richardson had also shot 30 minutes of experimental footage of Bowie the previous year with the aim of creating a large moving hologram.
Speaking to the BBC, Richardson said: “Bowie said to me, ‘When you’ve done your bloody hologram it will be up and down the width and breadth of the country. I am going to make you famous’.”
“He got back on the sound stage and said ‘right, what do you want me to do’ and I thought ‘I am going to direct David Bowie, the super rock star I idolised as a boy because of Ziggy Stardust right through to the Thin White Duke!’” he explained, before adding: “I filmed 30 minutes of David doing various poses and he could not have been nicer.”
“He picked up on this because he was very sensitive, and immediately jumped back onto the stage and started to do this set of amazing iconic movements that he was famous for and all his fans would recognise.”
Last week, it was announced that two new Bowie EPs are coming out this year. So far, Parlophone Records has released the first track from a brand new Bowie EP, called David Bowie Is It Any Wonder? Each week they will release a new track from the EP, and each song will be an unreleased version of a song from Bowie’s back catalogue, recorded in the 1990s. They have yet to release the full tracklist.
Watch the unearthed footage here.