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The Beatles on the Twickenham City Barge 1965 Home Movie

Revolution 1 and 2

Hey Jude 1, 2 and 3

Lady Madonna 1 and 2

Hello John and Ritchie - 1967

Hello Goodbye #1

Today's free video by The Beatles is a version of "Hello Goodbye". Directed by Paul McCartney at the Saville theatre in London, three different videos were made on the 10th of November 1967. Film no. 1 saw the Beatles dressed up in their Sgt Pepper uniforms, and Ringo's drum kit was rather small. For film no. 2 they wore their everyday clothes, and film no 3 was put together of outtakes from the first two, with the Beatles hamming it up for the camera. Here's a snippet of film no. 3, courtesy of the Beatles' own YouTube channel:

All three of these will be published as part of the Beatles 1+ package. Videos 1 and 2 are quite commonly found, thanks to having been aired more frequently on TV. Number 1 was shown on Norwegian TV once in the eighties.
Video no. 2 was distributed to TV stations when the Red and Blue albums were released on CD for the first time, in 1993.
Apple also made a fourth version in the nineties, which was shown on the Anthology TV series. This was merely video no. 1 until the coda, then it switched to footage from video no. 3. For some reason, the Anthology edit also rendered the opening footage of the film in black and white.

The third full length video will be released by Mashable, and the two remaining ones by other outlets.

Official Revolution video

Today, the full video of "Revolution", directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg was published on YouTube and Vevo. This is the first of five full length music videos to be published as promotion for the upcoming new editions of Beatles 1 and the DeLuxe Beatles 1+.
"Revolution" was filmed in tandem with "Hey Jude" on Wednesday 4 September 1968 at Twickenham film studios. Whereas "Hey Jude" was introduced by David Frost to be part of his television programme Frost on Sunday, "Revolution" was filmed to act as a music video to promote John's side of the single. There were three versions of "Hey Jude" and two of "Revolution" recorded and filmed. The songs all had live vocals on top of pre-recorded elements, a method that may have been inspired by the "All You Need Is Love" session for the satellite broadcast of "Our World". As a result of this, the audio tracks to the finished versions of each video are all unique and haven't previously been released in an official capacity.

The version of "Revolution" featured here is the one where it looks like George is saying to Paul, "John smells like sh*t!"

The Beatles arrived at the studios at 1.30pm and worked until evening.  For the "Revolution" clips, Paul McCartney performed the scream during the introduction, and the 'shoo-be doo-wop' backing vocals were ad-libbed from the slower, then-unreleased "Revolution 1".

The only contemporary UK screening of the "Revolution" clip was on the BBC's "Top Of The Pops" on Thursday 19 September.

Long time Beatles video collector and expert Steve Shorten informs us that when he watched this side-by-side with the original clip, he noticed some changes. In addition to trimming the beginning and end of the clip, a roughly 10-second segment of alternate footage has been inserted into the original edit of the promo at around the 1:30 mark. Shorten suspects we will be seeing several other changes of this nature throughout the disc(s).

As far as the sound is concerned, this is a new mono mix, with Nicky Hopkins' piano track added. It's a well known fact that John Lennon preferred the mono "Revolution", he didn't like the stereo mix which they released on "the blue album", Beatles 1967-1970. So it seems they have honoured his wish. Or perhaps they never had the live vocals taped separately, they may have only been recorded as part of the full mix including the backing track. Back in 1992 when Ron Furmanek remastered and remixed the promo videos for the first time, he also went with mono for "Revolution".

The next video is coming up in two days, on 22 October.

Restoration of The Beatles 1 Collection

The Beatles' YouTube account has premiered episode 1 in a series of 5 about the restoration and remastering/remixing of the 2015 "Beatles 1" and "Beatles 1+".

Beatles 1 Blu-ray / DVD trailer

THE BEATLES’ VIDEOS AND TOP HITS COME TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME

All-New Editions of The Beatles 1 Pair Beautifully Restored Promotional Films and Videos with Brand New Stereo and Surround Audio Mixes 

Preorder your copy at http://www.thebeatles.com

Beatles 1+ Deluxe Edition Celebrates the Sight & Sound of The Beatles in 50 Films & Videos


London – September 15, 2015 – After The Beatles stopped touring, and because travelling around the globe to promote new releases was impossible, the band increasingly made what could be described as “mini movies”. These pioneering promotional films and videos helped to define the way we have come to watch music, not least because The Beatles approached filming with the same ease and innovative spirit they brought to the recording studio, exploring new creative possibilities with infectious delight. Showcasing the band’s filmed work to accompany their 27 No.1, U.K. and U.S. singles, The Beatles 1 is newly restored and expanded in multiple configurations for global release on November 6 by Apple Corps Ltd/Universal Music Group.

The 27-track CD/DVD and CD/Blu-ray pairs beautifully restored videos for each song, with new stereo and 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS HD surround audio mixes. The brand new Beatles 1+ celebrates their career in over 200 minutes through 50 promotional films and videos. This includes the 27 No.1s, with the restored videos, along with a second disc of 23 videos, including alternate versions, as well as rarely seen and newly restored films and videos; all include new audio mixes in deluxe CD/2-DVD and CD/2-Blu-ray packages. The 27-track audio CD is also being made available with new stereo mixes. A 2 LP, 180-gram vinyl package will follow.

The new editions of The Beatles 1 have been made possible following extensive research, and restoration of the original promo films, classic television appearances and other carefully selected videos spanning the band’s history. Apple Corps dug deep into The Beatles’ vaults to select a broad range of films and videos for their rarity, historical significance and quality of performance. An 18-person team of film and video technicians and restoration artists was assembled by Apple Corps to undertake painstaking frame-by-frame cleaning, colour-grading, digital enhancement and new edits that took months of dedicated, ‘round-the-clock work to accomplish.

The result is a visual run down of The Beatles’ number one records, as well as the additional tracks on the bonus disc of Beatles 1+ that show the band in previously unseen standards of clarity and quality; many of the films and videos have never before been commercially released, in whole or in part.

Beatles 1 and Beatles 1+ offers the restored films, including 35mm negatives scanned in 4K and digitally restored with new stereo and 5.1 surround audio remixes, produced from the original analogue tapes by the GRAMMY® winning team of Giles Martin with Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios. For four of the videos, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have provided exclusive audio commentary and filmed introductions, respectively. The 1+ Deluxe Edition, presented in an expanded 124-page illustrated hardcover book includes ‘an appreciation’ of The Beatles’ ground-breaking films and videos by music journalist and author Mark Ellen and extensive, detailed track/video annotation by music historian and author Richard Havers. 

“These videos and films are spectacular reminders of the era we lived in. They also rock!” – Paul McCartney

“I think it’s really interesting to see the videos we made, some of them incredible and some of them really incredible. How else would we have got to sit on a horse?“ – Ringo Starr

Between 1962 and 1970, The Beatles released 27 No.1 hit singles in the U.S.A. and the U.K. In 2000, these timeless songs were collected for The Beatles 1, which topped the charts in 35 countries and became that decade’s bestselling album worldwide. 15 years later, 1 is revisited for this entirely new, visually-inspired presentation.

It’s The Beatles, as you’ve never seen them before.

thebeatles.com

Beatles video restoration

2 versions



"Penny Lane" colour correction



"Strawberry Fields Forever" restored sample

A Hard Day's Night - speed corrections

© Bettmann/CORBIS

You might recall that one thing the new edition of A Hard Day's Night DVD/Blu-ray didn't address, was the speed issue. The film was shot at 25 fps and played back at 24 fps, but they neglected to speed up the tracks during filming, and as a result the songs sound slower in the film than on the records.

Music Radar interviewed Giles Martin about the speed issue.

MR: I read that the mixes of the songs in the film were slower than the album versions. Why was that?

GM: “Yeah, and that’s something I asked them to change. When I was working on the Martin Scorsese-George Harrison film, I noticed it. And I Love Her was a semitone down. It’s got to do with frame rates. I asked them, 'Can you change the frame rate of the film?' and of course, you can’t because that would speed up the film. Pitching the music but keeping it at the same speed might have worked, but then you’re going into a digital world that’s kind of unpleasant. It’s a bit like plastic surgery, and you don’t want to be doing that, putting a new face on something. The thing about And I Love Her in the film is, it’s a different mix. It’s not a double-tracked vocal, whereas the original is.”

Now, a friend of WogBlog has released speed corrected versions on YouTube. Done in computer at 106% playback speed, these versions match the speed of the 09 remastered studio tracks, but with the audio from the film.

And I Love Her

If I Fell

I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

Finale Concert

The Mersey Sound (1963)

The Beatles were in Southport for a series of six nights at the Odeon Cinema when they also took part in The Mersey Sound, a documentary made by Manchester-based BBC producer Don Haworth. Haworth had first met the group on 21 July 1963 to discuss his idea to capture the spirit of Mersey Beat on camera. He signed a contract with Brian Epstein on 6 August, granting him exclusive access for a time.
Shooting took place in Southport, Manchester and Liverpool between Tuesday 27 and Friday 30 August. On this first day The Beatles were filmed at the Little Theatre on Hoghton Street, Southport, performing on stage without an audience. Haworth knew that if he filmed a real concert the sound and the fury from the fans would have made the footage unusable. Filming began at 9.30am. The Beatles performed versions of Twist And Shout and She Loves You, while wearing their grey collarless suits. They then changed into black collarless suits and performed Love Me Do, with a curtain behind them to suggest a different location.
Haworth later edited in footage of fans from The Beatles' concert on the previous night at the Odeon. In the final cut, however, the EMI recordings of the songs was dubbed onto the footage in place of the live audio.
On the second day, the filming took place in a dressing room at the BBC's Dickenson Road studio in Manchester. They spoke about their past, future plans and their belief that the present beat music boom wouldn't last for ever. They were also shown applying make up and waiting in the wings their instruments, in a sequence which was intended to precede the 'concert' footage filmed the day before.
The BBC's first north of England television studios were situated at the corner of Dickenson Road and Wilmslow Road, Manchester, in the former Dickenson Road Methodist Church. The building was demolished in the late 1960s.
For the third day of filming, The Beatles were filmed in their home city Liverpool.
Two locations were used. The first was aboard a ferry crossing the Mersey from Liverpool Pier Head to Wallasey. They were filmed on board signing autographs and meeting fans. Following this they were taken to Speke Airport - later renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport - where they pretended they were arriving back in England by descending the steps of an aeroplane.
On the fourth and final day, filming took place outside 10 Admiral Grove, Liverpool 8, Ringo Starr's family home. Starr was filmed leaving the house through the front door, being crowded by a horde of local children, and leaving in George Harrison's open-top sports car.
Also present were John Lennon and Paul McCartney, although footage of them from this day wasn't used in the final edit. Afterwards, Haworth filmed a scene in which Starr walked alongside a row of women sitting underneath hairdryers in the salon at the Horne Bros clothes store in Lord Street, Liverpool.

The Mersey Sound was first aired on Lennon's 23rd birthday, 9 October 1963, from 10.10-10.40pm, in the London and northern England regions. It's first nationwide broadcast was on 13 November 1963 from 7.10pm.

Brother Malcolm

Revolver TV has published another item from their collection, this time it's a clip of "Let It Be" from the filming of the "Let It Be" film. The finished film would be a different take of this song, and included footage of the other Beatle members in the studio, but this camera focuses solely on Paul McCartney. The audio on the original upload was somewhat dodgy, so in this presentation it has been replaced with the same recording, taken from the Nagra tapes.

Many people are complaining about the huge watermarks embedded in Revolver TV's videos. However, the watermarks ensure that the unmarked original in their collection cab still be used in trades with other collectors for more rare material. Without watermarking, these videos would not have seen the light of day at all.

The Beatles: Love Me Do in Stereo

The Beatles: Love Me Do Deepsky Spectral Stereo Remix. By Deepsky.

Fifty years later: The Beatles at Shea Stadium

Part I

Part II

The Beatles' concert at Shea Stadium, 1965. LPP 16mm Film Print Digital Telecine version, original audio soundtrack without the 1966 overdubs.

I wonder what TheBeatles.com have up their sleeves for the fiftieth anniversary on August 15?

4-way Paperback Writer

Nowhere Man in Munich in colour

Our friend HIWAX in Japan keeps getting better at colourisation. This is a clip from the six-song broadcast of the Beatles' concert in Munich 1966, which was broadcast on TV in black and white, now colourised by HIWAX. You can compare his efforts with this clip, which was filmed the same day, only in real colour:

"Rain" multi-view

Four different promotional films (aka music videos) for the song "Rain" in multi-view, two in black and white, two in colour.