Dr. Bob Hieronimus Draws 6-foot Mural at Abbey Road
In March-April 2005, Dr. Bob Hieronimus was invited to speak on a panel of Yellow Submarine experts after the screening of “Yellow Submarine" during the first Abbey Road Film Festival at this legendary Beatles location. After obtaining permission from General Manager, Dave Holley, Dr. Bob spent many of his off-duty hours drawing a six foot mural of the Yellow Sub on the outside wall of Abbey Road. Tourists know that the white-washed wall outside of Abbey Road never stays clean for long as Beatlefans from around the world feel compelled to scrawl their messages of love and respect for the greats who recorded inside, and leave their little mark behind. Abbey Road had arranged for the last film in their festival to be Yellow Submarine, and they invited dozens of the original artists to attend and answer questions from the public. Because of its place of honor on their roster, Holley thought Dr. Bob’s idea of a mural on wall was a great idea! The mural lasted for about three months before the quarterly whitewashing of the wall took place covering it over, so these photos are the only record it existed!
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Dr. Bob Hieronimus (left) meets with Dave Holley (right), General Manager at Abbey Road Studios, where Holley welcomed us into his office for tea. |
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Dr. Bob works on the sketch for his mural design on paper first. |
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Dr. Bob pointing to the "blank" wall before he started the mural, showing where he will begin. |
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Closer up on the Abbey Road showing the Film Festival banner and grafitti, before the mural. |
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Dr. Bob begins sketching onto the grafitti covered wall. |
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Bob begins to "paint" the mural (in colored sharpie pens). See the yellow outlines of the Sub. |
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The color and details start to take shape. |
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The completed mural! |
Abbey Road's First Film Festival
Began and Ended with the Beatles!
A quarter of a century ago, Abbey Road recorded its first film score, and to
mark the event, Abbey Road Studios presented its first-ever film festival.
For the first time, the public was invited inside this legendary studio and
given the unique pleasure of screening many of the blockbuster films in the
actual studios where the music was recorded. To listen to these awesome
sounds and feel the magical atmosphere was the best way to understand why
this place is so special to so many people.
Audiences were treated to all three installments of "The Lord of the Rings", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Pink Floyd: The Wall", to name a few, but the home of the Beatles deliberately began and ended their festival with the Beatles. They opened on March 19th with "A Hard Day's Night" and closed the festival on April 3rd with "The Beatles Yellow Submarine". Other Beatles-related films included "Backbeat" and "Live and Let Die", but viewers of AHDN and YS were also treated to special VIP Q&A panels. The Yellow Sub expert panel included Krause"s author of Inside the Yellow Submarine the Making of the Beatles Animated Classic, Dr. Bob Hieronimus. After a standing ovation by the full-house audience of 300, panel moderator Martin Lewis concluded that "it took an American (Bob Hieronimus) to write the definitive history of the Yellow Submarine." Over 20 of the film's animators and artists were in the audience and after-party, at perhaps one of the last times so many will be gathered together in one place.
We were allowed to photograph and videotape the entire event and present for you here a few photos of what it looked like and what was said by the co-creators of the film inside the legendary Studio One and Studio Two of Abbey Road
(Click on thumbnails below for larger picture)
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