Wall 1981 footage

[thebelgiangnome]

Hello,
Just found this. Does anyone here kows this footage ?

[goguilorenzo]

The first part (happiest) seems to me material from the immersion box, and the rest of the documentary behind the wall

[NuffM]

This is a compilation of 35mm footage from June 1981. The footage of 'Is There Anybody Out There' is actually just footage of the ending to Hey You in June 1981. Before I get into the various sources used here, it is incredibly important to mention that most of this footage IS NOT live.

The band decided that they would need concert footage for the upcoming movie. When the shows in June 1981 came around, they had several cameras set up all throughout the arena; balconies, galleries, up against the stage, on a track in between the rows of seats, even behind the wall...they captured nearly every angle that they would need. Except, for actual close-ups of the band members. They got some great footage of the show from AFAR, but nothing of the actual band using their instruments or singing up close. They realized this mistake after the shows were over and knew that they needed close-ups. So, sometime after June 1981, they took to a large studio (possibly Shepperton or some other place in London) and created a 1:1 scale replica of the stage that they used for Earls Court, and they proceeded to film as much as they needed for the 3 songs they wanted the close-ups for. They did multiple takes for each song, and the songs they needed were: 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives/Another Brick In The Wall pt. 2' and 'Mother'. There is some footage of a fully lit up brick wall that does not match any live shows, and the ceiling matches the studio they played in. So I have no idea if they only wanted some shots of the fully lit wall, or if they also filmed close-ups for 'Hey You'.

So what this means is that, when you watch the clips such as Happiest Days, you're watching live footage when it's far away, but studio footage when you see the band member's faces. This includes the iconic side shot of David and Roger singing the ending verse, the shots of Roger singing, the shots of Nick, the shot under Gilmour, etc...

The Brick 2 clips come from various sources and is a fan edit done around 2012. A good chunk of the footage is studio but a good chunk is also live.

All of the Mother footage in this video is studio as well, and is a fan edit.

The Hey You footage is another fan edit like Brick 2 that mixes several sources. The iconic shot of the camera climbing up the wall and panning — to show the dark abyss of the crowd — was shot on June 17th 1981, the final performance with Waters until Live 8. They attempted this "crane shot" for 4 nights in a row and this one proved to be the most successful. This specific moment was also captured by Derek Treharne in his complete Wall concert 8mm reconstruction.

Most of the songs during the original June 1981 shows were captured through various nights but it's unknown if every single song was captured enough to make up a full cinematic release. The general consensus is simply "No". This isn't a problem with the 5 shows they shot on tape in February and August 1980.

The sources that are used most here are:

《The Other Side of The Wall》 — Which was a documentary aired several times in the 1980s (edited in 1982), and was included on some copies of The Wall movie in the 2000s. It includes crowd footage from June 1981, studio footage of Happiest Days and Brick 2, Hey You footage from the shows (the spotlights; it's the crescendo) and a shot of the fully lit up wall from the studio as well. All of it is 35mm film.

《The Wall Immersion》 — A box-set released in 2012 which contained a remaster of The Wall live album, an interview with Gerald Scarfe and the Brick 2 music video. It also included a documentary called "Behind The Wall", this was a documentary that went alongside the release of "Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81", and it was broadcast on television a few times in 2000, and released officially in this box-set (but cropped for some reason). This documentary has loads of footage from both legs at Earls Court in 80-81, showcasing excerpts from songs such as 'In The Flesh?' (tape), 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives)' (35mm), 'Young Lust' (tape), 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 3' (tape), 'The Last Few Bricks' (35mm), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (tape), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'The Trial' (35mm/tape) and 'Outside The Wall' (tape). The source of that famous "crane shot" seen in this video comes from the 'Hey You' portion of this documentary. In the same box-set is a prestine — for 480p...thanks Roger — excerpt of 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives', which is seen at the start of this video. The original clip cuts off as Brick 2 begins.

《2010/2012 Promo/Documentary》 — The 2010 EPK/PROMO was a small documentary that aired on television shortly before Roger's new Wall tour in 2010. It was also uploaded onto Roger's website at the time and shared by other places such as The Wall Street Journal and concerts(dot)com. This short EPK contained monochrome footage of The Wall concerts at Earls Court in 1980-81, using a mix of the videotape and the 35mm film from the live shows and studio session. The 2012 version was a full length documentary that broadcast on Channel 9 in Australia around 2012, and later released in a very limited edition box-set. This version of the documentary contained most of the same footage as the 2010 one, but this time it was in full colour and uncropped (the 2010 one was cropped to 16:9). Lots of the Brick 2, Mother and Hey You footage seen in this video are from these two sources, but the sources also include footage from songs such as 'In The Flesh?' (35mm/tape) 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 2' (35mm), 'Mother' (35mm/tape), 'One Of My Turns' (35mm/tape), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (35mm), 'Hey You' (35mm), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Bring The Boys Back Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'In The Flesh' (35mm), 'Run Like Hell' (35mm/tape), 'Waiting For The Worms' (tape), 'The Trial' (tape) and 'Outside The Wall' (tape).

《Behind The Wall EPK》— Similar to the "Behind The Wall" documentary, this ~15 minute version shows some of the same songs as the full length documentary, but differently cut. This version was broadcast before the actual full length documentary on television, and has never seen any kind of official release, but did surface on the internet in the 2000s as a very very low quality VHS rip, which is what is seen here. Some of the Brick 2 footage in this video comes from this short version, but it also includes excerpts from 'In The Flesh' (tape), 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 2' (35mm/tape), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (tape), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'Waiting For The Worms' (tape) and 'The Trial' (tape).

Notes:
——1: Even though Roger says that these concerts were filmed on 70mm film, that just isn't the case. It was shot on Eastman 125T 35mm film with Panavision (anamorphic) Panaflex Gold cameras and E-Series lenses. The reason that Roger has endlessly mistaken it for 70mm is because the original negatives, when printed, were blown up to 70mm.
——2: All of the copies used in this video are dog shite. All sources have better copies out there that you can find.
——3: Because the shows were shot on 125T Eastman stock, sadly the original prints are — without doubt — blood red right now. I mean, in the 'Happiest Days' excerpt in the Immersion set, the blues and greens are literally gone for the most part, and the footage was already showing signs of fading in the late 80s, and by 2000 (Behind The Wall), Happiest Days was already super red and the colours on Hey You were not nearly as vibrant. The blue information in the shots of Mother in the 2012 source, is completely gone. I have many photographs of that studio session, and the spotlight was a very vibrant blue...now, it is speculated by me and some other folks that copies were made in the 80s for advertisement/television purposes, but...why would Roger use only bad prints in-between 2000-2015? It just makes no sense to me.
——4: Roger only had the 35mm footage of the few songs needed for the movie until Steve O'Rourke's death in the mid 2000s. When he passed, it was discovered that O'Rourke had been keeping the rest of the reels privately, and they immediately went to Roger afterwards; he talked about this in an issue of MOJO Magazine in 2009.
——5: Contrary to popular belief, THEY DID NOT ONLY SHOOT 3 SONGS. David Gilmour said this in the early 2000s before the rest of the reels were discovered; he only said this because the only 35mm footage that they had at the time was Happiest Days/Brick 2, Mother, Hey You and The Trial, but even then, that's 4 songs. 5 if you count Happiest Days and Brick 2 as separate tracks.

Hope this helps.

[daemonspudguy]

It's so odd to me that they immediately took 35mm film and printed the negatives onto 70mm. Why would they do that? Also, yeah, it really does suck that it's all (most likely) blood red now.

[YYZ]

NuffM, fantastic post!

So who has heard the story that Roger has a now completed version in mint condition of The Wall on his lap top?
He used as a cross reference to show his touring band of The Wall from 2010 on wards.

I still live in hope.

[NuffM]

NuffM, fantastic post!

So who has heard the story that Roger has a now completed version in mint condition of The Wall on his lap top?
He used as a cross reference to show his touring band of The Wall from 2010 on wards.

I still live in hope.

It happened. But I truly doubt we will ever see such a thing before Roger dies.

[thebelgiangnome]

Thanks for the post NuffM !

[TheGreenStrat]

Great work Nuff.

[Floydfan2410]

This is a compilation of 35mm footage from June 1981. The footage of 'Is There Anybody Out There' is actually just footage of the ending to Hey You in June 1981. Before I get into the various sources used here, it is incredibly important to mention that most of this footage IS NOT live.

The band decided that they would need concert footage for the upcoming movie. When the shows in June 1981 came around, they had several cameras set up all throughout the arena; balconies, galleries, up against the stage, on a track in between the rows of seats, even behind the wall...they captured nearly every angle that they would need. Except, for actual close-ups of the band members. They got some great footage of the show from AFAR, but nothing of the actual band using their instruments or singing up close. They realized this mistake after the shows were over and knew that they needed close-ups. So, sometime after June 1981, they took to a large studio (possibly Shepperton or some other place in London) and created a 1:1 scale replica of the stage that they used for Earls Court, and they proceeded to film as much as they needed for the 3 songs they wanted the close-ups for. They did multiple takes for each song, and the songs they needed were: 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives/Another Brick In The Wall pt. 2' and 'Mother'. There is some footage of a fully lit up brick wall that does not match any live shows, and the ceiling matches the studio they played in. So I have no idea if they only wanted some shots of the fully lit wall, or if they also filmed close-ups for 'Hey You'.

So what this means is that, when you watch the clips such as Happiest Days, you're watching live footage when it's far away, but studio footage when you see the band member's faces. This includes the iconic side shot of David and Roger singing the ending verse, the shots of Roger singing, the shots of Nick, the shot under Gilmour, etc...

The Brick 2 clips come from various sources and is a fan edit done around 2012. A good chunk of the footage is studio but a good chunk is also live.

All of the Mother footage in this video is studio as well, and is a fan edit.

The Hey You footage is another fan edit like Brick 2 that mixes several sources. The iconic shot of the camera climbing up the wall and panning — to show the dark abyss of the crowd — was shot on June 17th 1981, the final performance with Waters until Live 8. They attempted this "crane shot" for 4 nights in a row and this one proved to be the most successful. This specific moment was also captured by Derek Treharne in his complete Wall concert 8mm reconstruction.

Most of the songs during the original June 1981 shows were captured through various nights but it's unknown if every single song was captured enough to make up a full cinematic release. The general consensus is simply "No". This isn't a problem with the 5 shows they shot on tape in February and August 1980.

The sources that are used most here are:

《The Other Side of The Wall》 — Which was a documentary aired several times in the 1980s (edited in 1982), and was included on some copies of The Wall movie in the 2000s. It includes crowd footage from June 1981, studio footage of Happiest Days and Brick 2, Hey You footage from the shows (the spotlights; it's the crescendo) and a shot of the fully lit up wall from the studio as well. All of it is 35mm film.

《The Wall Immersion》 — A box-set released in 2012 which contained a remaster of The Wall live album, an interview with Gerald Scarfe and the Brick 2 music video. It also included a documentary called "Behind The Wall", this was a documentary that went alongside the release of "Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81", and it was broadcast on television a few times in 2000, and released officially in this box-set (but cropped for some reason). This documentary has loads of footage from both legs at Earls Court in 80-81, showcasing excerpts from songs such as 'In The Flesh?' (tape), 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives)' (35mm), 'Young Lust' (tape), 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 3' (tape), 'The Last Few Bricks' (35mm), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (tape), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'The Trial' (35mm/tape) and 'Outside The Wall' (tape). The source of that famous "crane shot" seen in this video comes from the 'Hey You' portion of this documentary. In the same box-set is a prestine — for 480p...thanks Roger — excerpt of 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives', which is seen at the start of this video. The original clip cuts off as Brick 2 begins.

《2010/2012 Promo/Documentary》 — The 2010 EPK/PROMO was a small documentary that aired on television shortly before Roger's new Wall tour in 2010. It was also uploaded onto Roger's website at the time and shared by other places such as The Wall Street Journal and concerts(dot)com. This short EPK contained monochrome footage of The Wall concerts at Earls Court in 1980-81, using a mix of the videotape and the 35mm film from the live shows and studio session. The 2012 version was a full length documentary that broadcast on Channel 9 in Australia around 2012, and later released in a very limited edition box-set. This version of the documentary contained most of the same footage as the 2010 one, but this time it was in full colour and uncropped (the 2010 one was cropped to 16:9). Lots of the Brick 2, Mother and Hey You footage seen in this video are from these two sources, but the sources also include footage from songs such as 'In The Flesh?' (35mm/tape) 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 2' (35mm), 'Mother' (35mm/tape), 'One Of My Turns' (35mm/tape), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (35mm), 'Hey You' (35mm), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Bring The Boys Back Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'In The Flesh' (35mm), 'Run Like Hell' (35mm/tape), 'Waiting For The Worms' (tape), 'The Trial' (tape) and 'Outside The Wall' (tape).

《Behind The Wall EPK》— Similar to the "Behind The Wall" documentary, this ~15 minute version shows some of the same songs as the full length documentary, but differently cut. This version was broadcast before the actual full length documentary on television, and has never seen any kind of official release, but did surface on the internet in the 2000s as a very very low quality VHS rip, which is what is seen here. Some of the Brick 2 footage in this video comes from this short version, but it also includes excerpts from 'In The Flesh' (tape), 'Another Brick in The Wall pt. 2' (35mm/tape), 'Goodbye Cruel World' (tape), 'Nobody Home' (tape), 'Comfortably Numb' (tape), 'Waiting For The Worms' (tape) and 'The Trial' (tape).

Notes:
——1: Even though Roger says that these concerts were filmed on 70mm film, that just isn't the case. It was shot on Eastman 125T 35mm film with Panavision (anamorphic) Panaflex Gold cameras and E-Series lenses. The reason that Roger has endlessly mistaken it for 70mm is because the original negatives, when printed, were blown up to 70mm.
——2: All of the copies used in this video are dog shite. All sources have better copies out there that you can find.
——3: Because the shows were shot on 125T Eastman stock, sadly the original prints are — without doubt — blood red right now. I mean, in the 'Happiest Days' excerpt in the Immersion set, the blues and greens are literally gone for the most part, and the footage was already showing signs of fading in the late 80s, and by 2000 (Behind The Wall), Happiest Days was already super red and the colours on Hey You were not nearly as vibrant. The blue information in the shots of Mother in the 2012 source, is completely gone. I have many photographs of that studio session, and the spotlight was a very vibrant blue...now, it is speculated by me and some other folks that copies were made in the 80s for advertisement/television purposes, but...why would Roger use only bad prints in-between 2000-2015? It just makes no sense to me.
——4: Roger only had the 35mm footage of the few songs needed for the movie until Steve O'Rourke's death in the mid 2000s. When he passed, it was discovered that O'Rourke had been keeping the rest of the reels privately, and they immediately went to Roger afterwards; he talked about this in an issue of MOJO Magazine in 2009.
——5: Contrary to popular belief, THEY DID NOT ONLY SHOOT 3 SONGS. David Gilmour said this in the early 2000s before the rest of the reels were discovered; he only said this because the only 35mm footage that they had at the time was Happiest Days/Brick 2, Mother, Hey You and The Trial, but even then, that's 4 songs. 5 if you count Happiest Days and Brick 2 as separate tracks.

Hope this helps.

Wow, that's the most insightful post about the Wall Live footage I've ever read, thanks!
i have always been very hopeful that we would one day get this live film, especially when the Happiest Days teaser was released with the Immersion Box. But now Im much more doubtful. I've read interviews with Roger where he says he wants to release the film, but obviously that has yet to happen.
So what are the chances for The Wall Live 1980/81 to be ever released on DVD/Blu-ray?

[jmr]

Excellent post, but I'm curious about this one bit:

they captured nearly every angle that they would need. Except, for actual close-ups of the band members. They got some great footage of the show from AFAR, but nothing of the actual band using their instruments or singing up close. They realized this mistake after the shows were over and knew that they needed close-ups.

Is this (the bolded part in particular) documented somewhere or just speculation? Having cameras on stage filming closeups suitable for use in the film would probably have been pretty intrusive, distracting, and detrimental to the concert for anyone in the audience. It seems plausible to me that this was not a mistake per se but rather an intentional choice, and the staged re-shoot for closeups could have been the plan all along.

[NuffM]

Wow, that's the most insightful post about the Wall Live footage I've ever read, thanks!
i have always been very hopeful that we would one day get this live film, especially when the Happiest Days teaser was released with the Immersion Box. But now Im much more doubtful. I've read interviews with Roger where he says he wants to release the film, but obviously that has yet to happen.
So what are the chances for The Wall Live 1980/81 to be ever released on DVD/Blu-ray?

No problem!

Man, the chances. I've said before but I'll say it again, I really do not believe Roger will ever release it. Harry is a bootleg fan and is the reason why Roger even bothered with ITAOT in 1999, so I'd fully believe that Harry would release it after Roger's passing. We'll just have to see, unfortunately.

[NuffM]

Excellent post, but I'm curious about this one bit:

Is this (the bolded part in particular) documented somewhere or just speculation? Having cameras on stage filming closeups suitable for use in the film would probably have been pretty intrusive, distracting, and detrimental to the concert for anyone in the audience. It seems plausible to me that this was not a mistake per se but rather an intentional choice, and the staged re-shoot for closeups could have been the plan all along.

I read it quite a long time ago, maybe 2020-2021, I haven't seen the source since but I remembered that detail. If I ever find it again I'll let you know.

[TheMoebLoop]

Wow, NuffM! Keep on rocking, man!

[NuffM]

Wow, NuffM! Keep on rocking, man!

You too man! Love ya