The Story of Altamont by Gabriella Tassano May 2019, Dominican University of California.
"The Story of Altamont" is a graphic explainer video about the infamous free concert that took place on December 6, 1969 at Altamont Speedway. The concert was organized by the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones; it was scheduled to include Santana, Jefferson Airplane, CSNY and the Flying Burrito brothers. The event would also include several dozen members the Hells Angels motorcycle gang acting as informal security staff in exchange for $500 worth of beer as a “gratuity." The day grew with violent chaos and resulted in the Hell's Angel, Alan Passaro's stabbing of 21-year-old concert goer, Meredith Hunter.
Senior Thesis Announcement card 1 of 3
My Senior Thesis for Dominican University of California's Graphic Design Program. A multimedia "explainer" video about the Story of Altamont, the West Coasts' attempt to recreate Woodstock in the west. For a year I researched this story in depth, wrote the script, organized the story board and created this video in partnership with print materials that were displayed in our campus art gallery for 2 months. (January 2018 - May 2019).
Along with my video I displayed print materials in the gallery to provide additional perspective to the event. My goal was to recreate the energy and visuals of the environment in an unbiased manner to allow each viewer to put themselves into the space how they saw fit.
Dominican University of California Graphic Design Senior Thesis Exhibit May 2019. The Story of Altamont by Gabriella Tassano
3.5' x 5' print map of California Freeway system in 1969 with highlighted squares of the 3 different concert locations (Left). Perspective images that provide 6 different views of the venue, accompanied by an arial map of the Altamont Raceway to understand where each image was taken (right).
Two images taken by Sam Matthews at the Tracy Press in 1969 - My goal was to blend the two images to make a larger, almost panoramic landscape image. (September 2018)
First step was to align the images as closely as possible, using the VW Beetle in the foreground as a guide. The realization was that the people in the photo had walked about 20 steps in the time the image was taken so I would have to remove the duplicate people at a later point. (Photoshop. September 2018)
Overlays and blending patterns added to match coloring and reduce the edges of the photographs. Duplicate people removed. (Photoshop. September 2018)
Finger prints and other unnatural aging of the image removed (Photoshop. September 2018)
Final image printed to be displayed in show gallery. (Photoshop. September 2018).
5ft map from the State of California Library Archives, 3 transparent red squares represent the 3 different locations of the concert.
