This week has absolutely flown by! I’ve spent what little time I’ve had this week going back to my main area of interest, which is missing rock and pop TV.
A fair amount of discussion has concerned some Beatles footage I came across that I’d never seen before, which was some control room footage of their 1964 track “I Should Have Known Better“, originally featured in the film A Hard Day’s Night, and was also the B-side to the number one single of the song. The footage came from the Granada show Scene at 6.30, and was not from the 1963 shot, which has not been wiped. This show had been. I found a copy on YouTube, and spoke to various people about it, including those more knowledgeable than me.
While I was correct that the original show has been wiped, around 23 minutes of footage shot by Granada in documentary style remains. So we don’t have the original broadcast any more – just this! I also ascertained that the footage on YouTube featured a BBC Radio audio recording of the same track, slightly out of synch to the copy of the film. I am at a complete loss as to why the poster did this!
I have some people who have offered to put the audio that the Beatles mimed to (the mono version) and synch it with the clip.
Incidentally, if Granada – who have the missing footage – were to enlarge the control room screens, with some editing and some major cleaning up, it would be possible to give a good approximation as to how the Beatles were shown by Granada on this programme, although it wouldn’t be exact, partly because Granada employees get in the way of the shots and partly because no one can be absolutely sure which cameras were being used at any given point. Nice idea though, and if anyone in Manchester is listening….
Slightly off topic, but apparently there’s an electronic press kit with five Apple promotion videos on it, in excellent quality. I’m trying to track that down, even the tracklisting, partly for personal interest and partly to see if any are promos shown on Top of the Pops or any other shows.
I’m also trying to locate some footage from a regional TV show from the 1980s featuring a short film of one of Britain’s best-loved groups performing at a North East football stadium. It appears the footage is wiped, but I think I’ve found some on YouTube.
While I’m trucked off that ITV companies were still wiping in the ’80s, at least there were VCRs around. Not as good as keeping the original films, though.
When will you learn TV companies that this is history you’re erasing?
Until next time,
Ray.
Wiped News 