Were the Wembley shows intended to be filmed like Montreal?

Penetration_Guru wrote:

kevin79 wrote:


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

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

and DVDs weren't even a consumer product for another 10 years.

I meant when the idea came to release the VHS and DVD of the show. Good God, it's a general statement about the broadcast and the subsequent releases. Forget everything else I said in that post. Let's go after him for the one thing he said in that post that wasn't clear to us.

valid points made by the original poster which can make for speculations.

personally I do buy the story that the saturday gig was always meant to be the one for release. However, as many bands do, a "back up" is often filmed if something malfunctions on the main gig. that way they have access to a safety shot if something should happen. The fact that the friday show shows mostly the band and little of the audience / stadium makes me think this theory is close to the truth, even though they've called it "a camera dress rehearsal"
As for the helicopter - who knows. a late decision and logistical issues which limited them to the first day? a cost issue?

one thing I would love for someone to interview the band/organisation about is how they went about editing and directing the friday night for the 2011 release, same goes for the audio. imo, the friday night stereo track is the best there is from the total 4 available dvd tracks.

Apologies if this has been previously discussed in the thread.


I thought it was interesting that the 2003 Wembley dvd was upmixed from the stereo master for the 5.1 mix.

I seem to recall reading on Brian's Soapbox (or here!) that that was due to the multitrack being missing so it was odd that the Friday performances on that release were freshly mixed from the multitrack. Presumably they would have been stored together.



Then "Return Of The Champions" came out and they had mixed a Freddie vocal + piano performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" obviously from the multitrack of the (Saturday?) Wembley show to play along with.

I recall it being discussed here that that was possibly due to not being able to locate all the necessary overdubs to match the 1992 audio release but that seems strange to me.

One would think that the overdubs would either have been edited in on a lead vocal comp for instance.

The sauce thickens.

kevin79 wrote:

I meant when the idea came to release the VHS and DVD of the show. Good God, it's a general statement about the broadcast and the subsequent releases. Forget everything else I said in that post. Let's go after him for the one thing he said in that post that wasn't clear to us.

So your point is that when they SUBSEQUENTLY came to release the VHS, they should have retrospectively decided to film the Friday?

Perhaps blaming us for your lack of clarity is a little unfair....

e-man wrote:

. However, as many bands do, a "back up" is often filmed if something malfunctions on the main gig. that way they have access to a safety shot if something should happen.

If anyone was doing that, they would plan to film the first night in full, and then only film bits on the second night if necessary.

Well, anyone that wasn't a time traveller...

Penetration_Guru wrote:

e-man wrote:

. However, as many bands do, a "back up" is often filmed if something malfunctions on the main gig. that way they have access to a safety shot if something should happen.

If anyone was doing that, they would plan to film the first night in full, and then only film bits on the second night if necessary.

Well, anyone that wasn't a time traveller...

Not necessarily. If you are in the same venue two nights in a row, any malfunctions in the production would probably occur the first night and can be ironed out before the next night.

So imo, if you decide to film and release a gig that is a part of a two night stand, I’d say The safer bet for a night without technical glitches is the second night.
But once you’re there with the camera crew already, the first night is both
A: a convenient way to secure extra footage
B: an opportunity to iron out any “challenges” to do with filming. For instance, no matter how well you plan it, actually trying it out in the venue surely must be the best way to find out whether it will go as planned or not. If it’s the latter, then you can change things round.

I have loads of concert films where I’m sure the band wish they had footage from a second gig.
Also, I have some concert films where they use shots from the sound check!
With footage from a second gig, you avoid this.