Were the Wembley shows intended to be filmed like Montreal?

When a band is playing the same venue multiple nights and they want to film it is standard in the industry to film everything. Find any live release of ANY concert...INCLUDING QUEEN...where they've been at one venue for more than one night and the live releases are ALWAYS a mixture of filming over however many nights they're there.

The idea that Queen in 1986 would hire a production company that needed a 'practice' show, something that almost never happens when it comes to releasing videos of concerts, is absurd.

Read the information on any concert release you'd like where the artist has been resident in a venue for more than 1 night

'Filmed over 3 nights at Wembley...'

'Filmed over her 5 consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden...'

'Captured over his magnificent 12 night residency in Vegas....'

It's ALWAYS the same. The idea Queen, arguably post-Live Aid the biggest live act in the world at that point and having been filmed in concert multiple times by the best of the industry would hire a production company incapable of shooting a show unless they had a 'practice' concert is silly. If it wasn't then such a thing would be standard across the industry. It isn't.

Also if it was 'just for practice' they wouldn't have filmed everything. You might shoot a few songs, get the bearings of the camera runs (something they could do without the band at all) but why would you film it all? There'd be no point unless the worry was the equipment would suddenly revolt upon hearing Crazy Little Thing Called Love so they decided it was safe to 'practice film' the entire show from start to finish.

It's such a ridiculous story it's almost absurd people buy it.

Production crews 'practice' shots by making sure they have everything on stage covered and us stand-ins to look at angles. They don't do a 'practice' show with a front man famous for running about everywhere on stage anyway. They also don't film concerts in their entity unless they intend to use them. The narrative that Friday was 'practice night' has come from the fact they didn't use any of that footage.

So you hire a full crew to film absolutely everything, you employ multiple camera men and camera angles, you hire a helicopter for aerial shots.

...for a show you don't intend on using at all? Despite the fact it's industry standard when an artist is in residence at the same venue for multiple nights to film everything and release a final product as a mix of all the shows blended together to seem one. Not only was that not the case in Queen's case by apparently they also hired a company so ill-suited in filming concerts despite the fact there were scores of live tour videos released by multiple artists by that point, they decided to go with a company so amateur they needed a 'practice'.

Likely.

I say this as someone who works in production and has been involved in live broadcasts...the idea that someone would be hired for such a big project who needed to 'practice' camera shots is laughable. Especially given how the guy who most cameras would be trained on would likely be running all over the place anyway. I mean...what's to practice?


Standard is: When a band is playing the same venue multiple nights, set up and film everything and the end result is usually always a blend of all the shows. Same happened with Queen five years earlier during their two-night shows in Montreal that were both film and released as a single 'live' concert. So the band even has form in co-operating with production companies for this very idea (until Freddie got mad and tried to sabotage it).

Both nights were filmed in their entirety because the idea was either two merge and mix or to safeguard against problems with the recording and ensure that they had a back-up for every single song so if there was a glitch that stopped Hammer To Fall on one show being recorded correctly - they had a back up.

"Oh no, not Queen. They hired a production company who in turn brought their entire crew along, filmed everything at great expense and even hired a helicopter for a concert they had absolutely no intention of using as anything other than a practice"

It's one of those 'this is what i've always heard so it must be true' things that people need to subject to some reality.

Even from the production point of view.

You're hired to produce a professional product that could be released commercially. You've got two nights to film the biggest live act in the world at that time.

You could

A) Film absolutely everything, ensuring that not only do you maximise the footage you have available but also safeguard against technical issues and gremlins by ensuring that if anything did go wrong you had a back-up for absolutely everything - every song captured and recorded professionally by your professional team - twice.

B) You just use the Friday for sh*ts and giggles to see if the crew you've hired know how to use the equipment and assume that everything on the second show will go swimmingly therefore have absolutely no need to keep the footage from Friday or indeed use it in any other way other than as a means to make sure your production team know which way round to point the camera.

Queenzone "It's B dumbass - go back to Reddit!"

I kind of buy the rehearsal story. They simply wanted to check that the cameras were at the best angle to capture the band. They'd have planned it out before hand of course, and they'd likely already know what worked and what didn't but they had to be sure it was compatible with the lighting rig, daylight conditions changing, etc. I imagine (this is purely my conjecture) that they'd have decided they were going to put out the Saturday show, and since the simulcast was pre-recorded, they'd have probably agreed that anything that didn't work on the Saturday could have the Friday cut in, and vice versa. Whether this actually happened, I don't know.

Oscar2009

You have MISSED the ONE really important point here... It was primarily videoed for a TV broadcast. The VHS release didn't happen until FOUR years later i.e. 1990.

Queen Productions DIDN'T organise the filming. Channel 4 in the UK did it for their programme 'The Tube'.

I'm not aware (although I'm happy to be wrong/corrected) that it was even discussed as a home video release... the fact that it took 4 years to release SUGGESTS that it was an afterthought.

Now for goodness sake: do yourself a favour and let your blood pressure return to normal.

I'm sure I was once told that they didn't have camera capicity to film the Friday as they were being used by Tyne Tees, a small local TV station, for other commitments.

It would make sense to have some continuity as they could 'drop in' shots from the Friday night in necessary.

As for the helicopter being there on the Friday, I've always assumed it was in case the noise of the chopper leaked onto the Saturday audio tapes.

[QUOTE] [b]earwig wrote:[/b]

Oscar2009

You have MISSED the ONE really important point here... It was primarily videoed for a TV broadcast. The VHS release didn't happen until FOUR years later i.e. 1990.

Queen Productions DIDN'T organise the filming. Channel 4 in the UK did it for their programme 'The Tube'.

I'm not aware (although I'm happy to be wrong/corrected) that it was even discussed as a home video release... the fact that it took 4 years to release SUGGESTS that it was an afterthought.

Now for goodness sake: do yourself a favour and let your blood pressure return to normal.
[/QUOTE]

QPL had Budapest filmed for release.

Also, it might NOW be common practice to film everything, but that wasn't the case in the mid 80s when big screens were rare, cameras and tape were expensive. I wonder if OP is projecting current practice onto the distant past

[QUOTE] [b]Oscar2009 wrote:[/b]

There's no need for a professional film company to film a 'test' concert. Quite apart from anything else the expense of doing so is astronomical. They weren't a group of students looking for something for their end-of-summer-term assignment. Why would you pay for the crew, the equipment and all the other expense necessary when undertaking such an venture, just to 'test'? [/QUOTE]

Wembley wasn't on film, it was on broadcast standard tape for TV.


We can thank the independent TV broadcaster Tyne Tees for quite a lot of 80's Queen footage, they also did The Bowl and i think the ITN (Independent Television News) report about Knebworth.
Back then the third TV channel was made up of lots of little local broadcasters who all shared content (The tube being on channel 4).
It all became ITV eventually and the only thing local these days is the news.

But we've seen the Friday show, it was edited years later. It wasn't given the same editing really isn't up to same standard as it wasn't a professional release. But the camera are there. Ever angle we see on the Saturday, we see on the Friday show. Camera on John, camera on Roger, camera on Brian, cameras on Freddie.

The only difference is that it was never edited for commercial release but it's clear all the cameras were there. They filmed the crowd also from in front of the stage as seen multiple times during the vocal play-a-long, Radio Ga Ga and other times during the Friday footage that's available. Unless they were expecting the crowd to be standing in a different place on Saturday to Friday this adds to the theory that they intended to, and did, film Friday with a full production crew but because of other issues it wasn't possible to use the footage as it wasn't possible to cut the footage to make it seem like one show because of the weather and they didn't want the final product to jump from light to dark, from pouring to sunny so they instead disregarded the Friday footage and just released Sautrday.

[QUOTE] [b]Oscar2009 wrote:[/b]

But we've seen the Friday show, it was edited years later. It wasn't given the same editing really isn't up to same standard as it wasn't a professional release. But the camera are there. Ever angle we see on the Saturday, we see on the Friday show. Camera on John, camera on Roger, camera on Brian, cameras on Freddie.

The only difference is that it was never edited for commercial release but it's clear all the cameras were there.[/QUOTE]

It's not clear all the cameras were there is it.

There were 16 cameras at Wembley on Saturday just filming for the Broadcast (Giving them plenty of alternative shots and angles to hide overdubs and patch up mistakes when broadcast). The 2003 DVD reuses at least one short sequence from two different angles during We are the champions, so we know they do this.

Friday clearly didn't have that amount of camera angles to choose from as the footage is mostly mid and close up shots (probably what they were feeding to the star vision screen).
It's missing most of the cameras that were in the crowd pointing toward the stage. There is an absolute lack of long shots, In between songs we are shown close ups of the band (Mostly Freddie walking around with his back to the camera) instead of the full stage, shots of the crowd are always tight claustrophobic shots taken from the stage outwards.

You are right to have your theory, But you shouldn't make up stuff that isn't true like this in order to force what we have to fit it.
We don't know they had all the cameras, and the evidence (what we have been told and what we can see in the footage) suggests they had quite a reduced number of them. Surely as you are "In the industry" you can see this when watching the footage?

In your opinion as a professional in the industry would the venue screen show mostly close ups and mid shots like we have from the Friday footage?
There is no reason for people in the crowd to see the full stage or the crowd they are part of, they get the scope, they are there seeing and being part of it, they want to see what's happening on stage....

With this is mind, isn't it just possible what we have is most likely made up from the Friday night feed sent to the star vision screen combined with the broadcast camera tests and rehearsals?

Because that's what my takeway theory is from sitting through it.

[QUOTE] [b]cmi wrote:[/b]

Wembley saturday show was mixed 3 times.

2 times (without overdubs / with overdubs) in 1986 by Mack for broadcasts and later for Queen At Wembley 1990 VHS/LD video.

1 time in 1991 (or 1992) by Brian Malouf for 1992 CD/LP/MC live album. Later this mix was remastered (with restored Tutti Frutti reprise) for reissue in 2003 and 2011.[/QUOTE]


There is also another mix released on vinyl in around 1992, where the sleeve was actually stickered ‘remixed by Roger Taylor’?

[QUOTE] [b]Oscar2009 wrote:[/b]

The narrative is
[/QUOTE]

You mean FACTS?

[QUOTE]
that Friday's concerned was filmed
[/QUOTE]
Taped, not filmed.
[QUOTE]
as a dress rehearsal
[/QUOTE]
Camera rehearsal, not dress rehearsal

[QUOTE]
for Saturday's concert but is this true
[/QUOTE]
Yes, the director says so and we have no reason to not believe him.

[QUOTE]
or was the original intention to film over two nights and somehow merge the best bits from each show into something that could be commercially released?
[/QUOTE]

Nope. It was shot for a TV broadcast, not for a commercial release (that came later). Budapest was the show which was professionally filmed with it being planned for a commercial release.


[QUOTE]
I ask because everything from Freddie's clothing to where he is standing on the stage a the beginning and end of each song on Friday mirrors very, very closely what happened on the Saturday to the point where it can't be coincidental. Too coincidental not to be deliberate.
[/QUOTE]

Not really. The shows were not improvised, but properly planned and "choreographed".

[QUOTE]
We know the Montreal shows that were later released were filmed in this way but Freddie got pissed off with the production team so tried to sabotage the continuity as best he could but with Wembley it seems as if the intention was to do the same; film over two nights and seamlessly merge the two.
[/QUOTE]
There's no real reason to believe it.

[QUOTE]
Maybe issues with the mix, the weather, the fact Roger popped on a jacket midway through on Friday he didn't wear the next night - led them to just use the Saturday show and overdub anything that was amiss but over the years the story has become how Friday was the filming 'rehearsal' and that none of it was intended for release whereas maybe in fact the intention was to release one concert merged together from both shows.[/QUOTE]

None of these would be a problem for Queen Productions in the 80's, I guess you haven't seen their shitty (in terms of editing) home video releases from the 80's?

I don't see any reason to see why they would lie about having the cameras at the Friday show as a rehearsal, especially given that only the mid-shot and close up cameras were there that night. I mean, if the plan is to capture the show the next night at the same venue, wouldn't it make sense to use that show to make sure that those cameras are all at good spots to cover as much of the stage as possible and make adjustments, if needed?

But, there are some other thoughts to look at. The band, Freddie especially, wore the exact same clothes for both performances. The documentary on the DVD stated that the filming crew thought that it might be possible to not record certain songs in order to change things like tape or batteries on the equipment. But Freddie said he wanted them to capture the whole concert, which had to have thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into that planning. And, for a rehearsal, they not only made sure to record it, but they made sure to record the whole Friday show.

My thought is that the idea was what was executed: to film and present the broadcast, VHS and DVD fully as the Saturday show. But, given the constraints present in capturing the full concert with the equipment of the time, they decided to record the camera rehearsal on Friday so that they'd have backup, if needed, to use in the editing if they ended up missing it when recording the Saturday show. But I don't think it was ever intended for them to edit both concerts together like Montreal '81. If that were the plan, I have to imagine that they would have had all of the cameras there for both shows.

[QUOTE] [b]kevin79 wrote:[/b]


My thought is that the idea was what was executed: to film and present the broadcast, VHS and DVD fully as the Saturday show. .[/QUOTE]

For the twelveteenth time, there was no plan to release Wembley on VHS. Budapest was filmed for VHS, Wembley was taped for BROADCAST ONLY.