ROTFLMAO! Too bad 'gerry' lacks the mental faculties to appreciate the subtle way in which he got his ass handed to him...
thomasquinn 32989 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wanker wrote:[/b]
And - Montreal was an easy choice for them because the audiences at their 78 and 80 shows were amongst the best audiences they had ever played for.
Anyone who has heard the classic 1978 audience recording knows what I mean ![/QUOTE]
It does make you wonder, though...why not Hammersmith '79? I guess it's a matter of all kinds of minor details cumulatively stacking the deck in favor of Montreal '78 - it was not the best option based on any single criterion, but when taking all factors as a whole, it emerged on top.
Ghostwithasmile is BACK! · Member since
They filmed Montreal because of a financial reason.
First thought was to film it in the USA (MSG NY) but then they found out how expensive filmjng in the US was. So they searched for a alternate venue in a other country.
At this time there was no really VHS market ( a emerging market but music/ concert video's were a very premature concept).The cinema profit was a big gamble it could sell well, it could be a commercially disaster!
AlexRocks · Member since
Was this actually shown in the theaters?! So that makes TWO Queen movies, eh?! The first being "Live At The Rainbow" that was shown before Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" in England when that was released in 1976, eh?
Our incredible and exceptional Manager, Jim Beach, normally is a very good judge of character, but he had struck up a friendship with someone who even he would admit was a little risky – a character called Saul Swimmer (now deceased, RIP, so I won’t slag him off too much!) Saul Swimmer had the idea that he could film a Queen concert, in a very high quality 35 mm double anamorphic way, and project the resulting film onto a huge screen three stories high, in an arena, and charge people to come and see it, like a concert. So a Queen show would be able to be seen in all sorts of places we could not get to in person. It seemed like a nice idea, but we were no longer on tour. So two special one-off concerts were booked in Montreal Forum, a well-known great audience for Queen, on the 24th and 25th of November 1981. This was, and IS, prime Queen territory, so we were guaranteed a great audience, but the scheme was fraught from the beginning. For a start, we were not on tour, so all the sound and lights and production and CREW had to be reassembled just for this occasion, and we had to rehearse ourselves up to speed. Plus, we didn’t get on with Mr Saul Swimmer at all. Freddie in particular took an instant dislike to the man, and this turned to something like hatred, when we discovered on the first night that Swimmer had put up his own lights on the audience, changed the colours in our lights, and had cameras all over the stage … obviously we were not going to be able to treat it like a normal gig. It got worse on the second night, when Saul Swimmer demanded that Freddie wear the same clothes as the first night … and make the same moves … this guy had no idea that the show wasn’t choreographed … we basically did what we liked … So tempers flared … and it shows.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD
What you will see in this film is a very edgy, angry band, carving out a performance in a rather uncomfortable situation. But it does mean it’s very high energy, real, and raw. In addition, although the actual quality of the film was great, you will see camera work from camera men who did not remotely know the show, directed by a director who didn’t know the show either. The subsequent editing was consequently chaotic. They cobbled together bits of both shows visually, choosing the bits where the cameras had found the right person at the right time. They then matched up the sound as best they could, but there were many bits where you were hearing sound from one night, but watching the visuals from the other. Still, the film went out, and WAS seen by a lot of people in a 'Live' situation.
ON TO A BAD VIDEO
But then the thing went further wrong … somehow no-one had realised that Saul Swimmer would assume the rights to put the thing out as a Video. So, against our will, the VHS version, confusingly called We Will Rock You, was put out around 1984. Of course the concert had not been shot with this in mind. And the sound had been mixed dry, with no audience, so it would work in a ‘live’ situation … so it was really unsuitable for a video, as well as being a bad mix in the first place. To cap it all, it was transferred at the wrong speed on to video, so the whole thing ran at the wrong pitch. We made lots of complaints, and so did many of the people who had bought it, but this did not stop the Swimmer commercial thrust … the video was a thorn in our side for 25 years … out there with our name on – but something we had no control over. They even went to DVD around 2001.
FINALLY WE BUY
Finally, we bought the whole thing off Swimmer last year with the kind help of Eagle Rock. Finally it could be sorted. The work that has gone into rescuing it is immense … I can’t even get into all the details, but Justin Shirley-Smith, and Kris Fredriksson have put nine months of loving care into rebirthing this baby … It involved finding the master 24-track tapes, figuring out how they had been chopped up, digitally copying them, and rebuilding them into complete performances, and then after much cleaning up, making a splendid new mix in 5.1 surround. The visuals were in a sense harder. The surviving negative went to be doctored in the USA – by a process using using algorithms invented by John D Lowry of NASA for rescuing the film from the Apollo Moon missions. (Astrophysics gets everywhere!) You know how quick computers are these days … ? Well, to give you an idea of the huge number-crunching involved, it took 700 Apple Mac G5’s one MONTH to process this film. The computation compares a frame with the ones before it and the ones after, and uses the comparison to remove dirt, scratches and some of the defects of the original filming. In the case of the feature film Singing in the Rain … it apparently removed the RAIN! So adjustments had to be made! In our case it worked well, as you will see – the quality is magnificent – particularly noticeable in the incredible close-ups of Freddie in "Bohemian Rhapsody". Having said this, the close up of Freddie is just about all you will see in "Bo Rap". Saul Swimmer’s editors made their selection of shots to use, and the footage they left on the cutting room floor has never been seen again. So no proper re-edit of the visuals was possible. It’s kinda sad, because in addition to all the cut-aways we might have liked to use, bits of songs are missing, and the whole of "Flash" and "The Hero" will never be seen because the visuals don’t exist. These tracks ARE however on the CD version of Queen Rock Montreal – and sound great! And in view of what happened later, no-one is upset now that this is a document which concentrates on Freddie.
END PRODUCT
So our boys, stuck with very few options, were still able to restore all the songs to their full length, and, with modern digital artistry, make lots of improvements. But to end up with a version that is much much more true to what actually happened at any given moment, Justin and Kris mostly had to match up all the sound bites to picture. It’s a great piece of work. Well, Maybe I’ve spoiled it for you by telling you all this, but I wanted you to appreciate the work that’s gone into it, and how worthwhile the project has been, made possible by Eagle Rock. And I do find that once I’m five minutes into the film, I’m caught up in it as a real live show.[/QUOTE]
I had no idea about most of that, an insightful read.
cmsdrums · Member since
I wonder how Mack reacted when finding Brian describe his original mix as "bad"?!!?
Mkls · Member since
ok so name ONE concert that QPL actually paid for and recorded by their own crew. its so obvious Queen never wanted to spend any money on film recordings, just using Trident money - later BBC crews and money - then various cheap intra venue video equipment (EC, H77) , local TVs (south america), Channel 4 (milton keynes) , then probably it was again saul swimmer and not QPL who risked his own money (why complaining then Brian?) ; Budapest was purely financed by the hungarian state film company in exchange of lower ticket prices and the band coming to Hungary. Why complain then later if there was never any financial commitment or investment???
The truth is , throughout their active live carrer, apart from Wembley 86 (which is again probably a channel 4 coproduction), they never ever ever invested their money or were interested to record ONE gig properly. Shame! they even decided to save money on renting a mobile recording video studio for knebworth...
The Real Wizard · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]AlexRocks wrote:[/b]
Was this actually shown in the theaters?! So that makes TWO Queen movies, eh?! The first being "Live At The Rainbow" that was shown before Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" in England when that was released in 1976, eh?[/QUOTE]
Add "Hungarian Rhapsody" to the list. That was shown in 2012.
The Real Wizard · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]P-Tr extinction event wrote:[/b]
ok so name ONE concert that QPL actually paid for and recorded by their own crew. its so obvious Queen never wanted to spend any money on film recordings, just using Trident money - later BBC crews and money - then various cheap intra venue video equipment (EC, H77) , local TVs (south america), Channel 4 (milton keynes) , then probably it was again saul swimmer and not QPL who risked his own money (why complaining then Brian?) ; Budapest was purely financed by the hungarian state film company in exchange of lower ticket prices and the band coming to Hungary. Why complain then later if there was never any financial commitment or investment???
The truth is , throughout their active live carrer, apart from Wembley 86 (which is again probably a channel 4 coproduction), they never ever ever invested their money or were interested to record ONE gig properly. Shame! they even decided to save money on renting a mobile recording video studio for knebworth...[/QUOTE]
Queen is far from unique in that sense. Many of the big bands have little footage of them at their peak - Pink Floyd, The Eagles and Yes to name a few. There is ZERO pro footage of Pink Floyd in their golden era of 1973-77 ! A lot of bands just didn't care to film their shows. Nobody back then could have possibly known what a golden era of music they were in. Business just went on as usual.
Queen invested their money into the show itself. They often had the most expensive lighting rigs of the time, and their crew was bigger than most. The gear and the payroll ensured they rarely made money on the road. In fact, the only time they turned in a profit was the Magic tour.
So there's no need to vilify Queen for their choices. Most bands just didn't even see it as an option. Unless there was a very good promotional reason at the time to film a show, most bands back then just focused their money and energy on the show itself in the moment.
matt z · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wanker wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]AlexRocks wrote:[/b]
Was this actually shown in the theaters?! So that makes TWO Queen movies, eh?! The first being "Live At The Rainbow" that was shown before Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" in England when that was released in 1976, eh?[/QUOTE]
Add "Hungarian Rhapsody" to the list. That was shown in 2012.
[/QUOTE]
ALSO (state side) I saw Q+PR at the cinema for the Ukraine gig.
Limited release. I think it only showed for two days. To make matters worse it was poorly attended
Holly2003 · Member since
I would take most of Brian's comments about Montreal/Swimmer with a pinch of salt. For example, it stretches credibility that Queen and their management wouldn't know Swimmer had the rights to a VHS release. Granted, VHS was relatively new at this time, but even so it's just not believable. Also, Brian says they "finally" bought the rights -- why finally? Why not earlier? The reality: they sold all the rights for a healthy profit but years later when they started releasing some concerts on DVD they had to rubbish the earlier VHS in order to promote the DVD release. Brian could have done this based solely on the benefits of digital over VHS but in that really shitty way he has, he chose to insult someone he had legally and willingly sold the rights to. (He has form on this -- moaning about Smile songs being online when in over 40 years he has made no effort whatsoever to rerelease them.) As for quality control, Rare Live? Live in Rio? Really Brian? He can be a very petty, vindictive man sometimes.
I would also treat with a lot of suspicion the idea that Queen never made money touring. The source for this is the band themselves so it could just be a part of their "legend". In any event, there are lots of ways creative accountants can legally hide profits to show that a tour was not profitable when it was. It happens in the film business all the time, when companies make money but show a loss.
cmsdrums · Member since
I agree Holly - to bitch about the original VHS of Montreal being 'bad quality' (which it really wasn't, and was certainly the best available), and then release the Rio VHS with butchered edits, terrible picture and sound mix quality, is laughable. One of Brian's major complaints seems to be that Swimmer asked them to wear the same clothes two nights in a row for continuity purposes. This suddenly didn't become an issue when they did the Rio gigs a WEEK apart, but strangely all appeared in the same garb so they could splice his solos!
In addition, the photo of John on the front of the Rio VHS that is reversed, making him look as if he's playing left handed, has always annoyed me!
Is it coincidental that Swimmer brought out the WWRY VHS in 1984, and then Queen decide to rush release Rio very shortly after?
I'm tempted to point out the 'bad mix' and 'same clothes' issues to Brian on his Soapbox!
Doga · Member since
I always thought Montreal have a great quality, and is a top film with the band on fire.
Maybe the problems with the clothes, the mix and the lightnings are simply the band and Swimmer never really get along. Then, the band attack the guy in every oportunity and the guy destroy the non-used film. Shame.
I always wandered why Queen never actually filmed the Sao Paulo gigs instead.
dsmeer · Member since
I have a better question why did Q+PR film the Ukraine gig? Probably pure for the money.
The Real Wizard · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]
Brian says they "finally" bought the rights -- why finally? Why not earlier?
[/QUOTE]
Apparently it couldn't be done while the director was still alive..
