Escapology Sleeve Shoot

The beautiful and iconic album cover for Escapology was shot on the roof of a 53-floor of a building in the Los Angeles business district at sundown.

Many believe that the sleeve image was produced using computer trickery and special effects, but Tom Hingston, the art director for Escapology (and almost every other Robbie sleeve ever!), explains that "a lot of people wrongly assumed it was on green screen and that's why we made a decision to use the 'making of' photos in the booklet to show that we'd actually done it."

The illusion that Robbie was hanging off the edge of a building over LA was created by Hingston and photographer Luis Sanchis towering over a suspended Robbie on a scaffolding rig - so it's a good job that none of them suffered from vertigo!

"Being as fearless as he [Robbie] is," Hingston said, "he just got up there and did it. Hats off to him as it was a long way up."

Robbie recalled the Houdini magic he displayed that day in his book You Know Me, saying "I was probably up there for five or six minutes at a time. It felt good. What was worrying was the fact that… all there was underneath me was a concrete floor, and then right next to me was the drop to the street."

Brave, brave man!