Beatles Anthology - Raw Footage

Having watched the broadcast and released cuts of Anthology, in addition to the '93 cut many, many times, I have to wonder - does anyone know approximately how many hours of interviews with Paul, George, Ringo, George Martin, Neil Aspinall, etc. were filmed? My mind reels at the possibilities of hundreds of hours of interview footage sitting away in vaults. In all the articles/press on Anthology from when it came out (and since), I've never seen this mentioned (as in "we filmed dozens of hours of interviews" or "hundreds of hours and edited it down")

Does anyone know?

 

I certainly do not know for sure....but I would guess you are correct. There must be tons of unused footage and clips from Anthology. You have to figure what a monumental task it was conducting numerous interviews with the main players and all of the clips of the Beatles that were prepared and then never used in the final product. There is probably enough material to make a complete 'alternate' Anthology with all the unused footage they must have stored away.....imagine the possibilities.

 

I would be far more interested in the performance footage that was gathered and not used, either due to time or storyline constraints or clearance/rights problems. I really don't care to see hours of P,G or R pontificating on forever, as I really didn't find their responses that were included in anthology all that enlightening.

 

Oh yes, more juicy interviews about how stinky the fat lady in MMT was! :-D (That's only in the '93 cut, for those who don't get the reference...)

 

Are you making fun of Ringo's auntie !!!???!!! ha ha

 

Dumb (but related) question - when did they actually do the interviews for the Anthology? Looks like it was spread out over a few years, well ahead of '94/'95.

 

As a start, I'm pretty sure there's a full set of 'Director's Cut' versions of the Anthology Series (complete with VT timing) on YouTube.....which pretty much doubles the length of each 'Standard' episode....

 

This is a question to those who have seen the 'Director's Cut' and other abandoned footage: did Paul, George or Ringo say anything is the cut footage that was particularly interesting or different to what was said in the released version of the series?

 

I don't remember a specific quote, but the Yoko mentions had a little more anger in how they came across - later missing in the final cut

 

Try this http://bigozine2.com/features05/BEAdvds.html

 

Thanks!

 

This part sounds interesting: ''Segment on George’s songwriting with Paul explaining why they did not include George in the song-writing partnership.''

Is this part online?

 

My brother was working in a Soho editing suite in London in 1993/94 and was told to help himself to any VHS tapes but they had to be wiped before leaving the building. Somehow he managed to get them out without the contents being erased. This is how I managed to get hold of an early cut of the 1965/66 episode at least 2 years before it was broadcast. I haven't watched it for almost 20 years but it certainly features clips and interviews not included in any broadcast/released version. The opening sequence was totally different - not the footage of the band playing Help!

 

The "Director's Cut" thing floating around is the only real alternate material floating around (apart from other bits like little bits here and there that were different on TV airings versus home video).

A number of years ago, there was a picture/screencap floating around of a clap board of one of the Anthology interviews (George, I think?). Someone posted it as proof that other raw material/outtakes were in the hands of someone, somewhere. It appeared legit, but nothing more was ever seen of it, so far anyway.

If you read the "Anthology" book, you can tell some (perhaps most or all?) of the text interviews in there were transcribed from the film interviews (albeit edited and cleaned up/corrected; the reference to Joe DiMaggio changed to Joe Garagiola for instance). So there's certainly a possible taste in the book of what other material was filmed in interviews.

 

I bought the "Director's Cut" on eBay probably 9-10 years ago. I need to pull it out and re-watch parts of it.

 

I believe the text from the Anthology book was largely taken from the filmed interviews. The book contains a great deal more information than the films.

 

Just like the Let It Be movie and the accompanying book. Or is it the other way around?

 

There are many noticeable differences, but one of the biggest is the long (and rather unflattering to her, probably) Yoko segment.

dewey02, I agree - I'd LOVE to see a Beatles Live/TV DVD box set w/all the existing UK TV appearances, Around the Beatles, the Shea special, etc. as well as an official promos DVD.

 

Sounds like you have what it known as the '93 directors cut - they have the different (and rather tedious) openings.

 

The creepy comp. of four Beatle faces in one makes no sense….as they reveal all the members, and keep the fake face up at the same time….showing five faces at once

 

I have a 10 DVD version of it. I'm sure there was far more then that too

 

That's the so-called Director's Cut (it isn't really) and it only went up to 1968. There's about 15% more interview footage in that than the official version (not including 1968/9/70). But the transcriptions in the Anthology Book show that they only used less than 25% of the filmed interviews on the TV/Video/DVD episodes.

 

gets a little thin when they interview the milk man about milk deliveries ......

 

No one has made reference to the electric jams with Jeff Lynne but they did attempt to play together other than the anticlimactic unplugged segment shown on the bonus DVD.

I'm guessing it wasn't all that good. Also I would have liked to have seen more footage of finishing John's songs.

 

Exactly how much Lynne did with them during the non-"Threetles" sessions (that is, the jam sessions versus overdubbing Lennon demos) is unclear; though apparently Lynne was in attendance on that day, which suggests to me he didn't join in much if at all since the whole point was to get the three on camera.

Not including more of the session footage of the two "reunion" songs in the 2003 DVD set was ridiculous. Hours of footage whittled down to a few moments here and there, all punctuated with EPK interviews with the participants.

Also curious was that the actual "Anthology" documentary didn't include *any* of the second joint interview the Threetles did in May 1995 at Abbey Road studios. Granted, the three of them are a bit awkward together in the footage (well, at least George and Paul), but no more so than the previous 1994 joint interviews they did.

Other than more archival Beatles footage (which ideally would be presented in some other sort of package), the thing I'd like to see most is more raw footage of recording "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love", as well as more of that May 1995 footage, and of course raw interviews would be great too.