We want the L.A. 1989 concert on BLURAY campaign!!!

[souldreamer7]

I will be happy to have the BAD 88' in London this sept. on DVD But I think that the 89' L.A. show and a few others are wonderful shows too. I always thought it'd be great to have an 87' 88' and 89' DVD set of the tour... and perhaps a fourth of a mix set from everywhere to make it equal and show the greatness of the BAD Tour.

[Skizzorpuppy]

I was just going to ask you this exact question via email.... i've read that capturing a concert on film is really hard because a large film reel only has about 10 minutes worth of footage, which means they'd have to really replace the film very fast. So i'd guess they have to have a number of cameras ready to pickup while other cameras are changing reels. So this would be a lot of camera reels for each camera to saved. I guess I was thinking they would have one final film reel like they do when they record on video cameras where the director is calling out shots. Well the director can't even see every shot like he would if he were recording on video with a video switcher. And also, they wouldn't know what they captured until post production.

Also, I emailed a director of photography that filmed Janet's You video. It was live concert video recorded during an actual show and I had hope they would release this show one day and possibly on blu-ray. Well her is what he said..

You've done well with your research so far. Janet's manager, at the time and perhaps even still, Roger Davies, had a routine where we would shoot a single music video while his artists were on tour, and they would then also use that piece to sell the full show idea to HBO. I shot those for both Janet and Cher with David Mallot.
We always shot 35mm film in those days, and we would shoot the song we were concentrating on performed twice during one live show, as well as a few passes for close ups on the afternoon prior to the live gig. We would also roll on any interesting visual highlights during other parts of the show, but unfortunately, we would not shoot the entire concert.


This makes me believe what you're say about them not filming the entire show. I hope they did and you're wrong.

Exactly, this would explain why the MITM moonwalker segment and APOM featuring different venues. Instead of doing what they did for Janet shooting the same song 2 or 3 times, they opted to get different coverage of the same song on different nights. From what I have heard two 35mm cameras were used to focus on Michael/performance and a 3rd 16mm camera for crowd shots/backstage shots was used.

If wembly or any other concert was shot on film and planned as a complete concert film, you would have expected longer breaks between songs and possible multi-performeces of songs. To my knowledge this didn't happen on any of the shows.

This is why I say, yeah alot of film footage probably does exist of the tour and a pretty good compilation of the various shows could probably be put together. But it doesn't seem like a complete (single night/one venue) show was shot with strictly a film presentation in mind.

[Skizzorpuppy]

My thoughts on the best way to get BAD on Blu. Find out just how much filmed footage exist and see how it cuts together.
Make it a "tour film" which would have multiple performances cut from the available material of different shows. In between songs
have backstage footage or whatever else b-roll exists. Then as an extra they could have SD U-matic transfers of a few of the shows that were completely shot on video,perhaps the L.A. show and a first leg show to show the differences of the tours evolution.

[brunomj]

If there wasn't a petition for wembley we wouldn't get any concert aside from the Bucharest show.

Just saying.

So you think we are getting it because of the petition that was made 4 years ago??? cmon... of course they heard that fans wanted it, but its not because of that petition, some people got in contact with Michael state and Sony and let them know we wanted it..

[IMWhizzle]

So you think we are getting it because of the petition that was made 4 years ago??? cmon... of course they heard that fans wanted it, but its not because of that petition, some people got in contact with Michael state and Sony and let them know we wanted it..

Yep, because of the petition. It isn't a coincidence that it's wembley.

[brunomj]

Yep, because of the petition. It isn't a coincidence that it's wembley.

oh yes it is, because the Wembley concerts were the most expected of the tour, with 7 Sold Out dates, biggest press ever and a world record solding out 7 nights at wembley. and where he performed the best according to Michael himself, thats why he have kept that tape for him.

[Hunterr]

In reference from the Janet video for YOU,
I thought I read that it was actually filmed before anyone was in the venue, hence the great close ups and such.

And then mixed in shots of it being live with an audience.

This could have been what they did for Another Part Of Me (for the closeups of the band, but maybe not).

I suppose it does make sense that it would be too complicated to shoot an entire show on film. Do-able, but tedious.

Funny though. Today, we can shoot an entire concert to a card the size of a thumb in a quality of video that is way higher than film.
Let's send 15 HD cams back in time to 1988 and have them tape every show in 24fps/1080p!

[Falcon]

In reference from the Janet video for YOU,

Funny though. Today, we can shoot an entire concert to a card the size of a thumb in a quality of video that is way higher than film.
Let's send 15 HD cams back in time to 1988 and have them tape every show in 24fps/1080p!

No way... 1080P60.... we need to captures mikes feet doing JB`s footwork at highest framerate...

But, film has higher resolution than HD, so professional filming would be better in the end.

Oh...only the thought of going back in time.

[IMWhizzle]

oh yes it is, because the Wembley concerts were the most expected of the tour, with 7 Sold Out dates, biggest press ever and a world record solding out 7 nights at wembley. and where he performed the best according to Michael himself, thats why he have kept that tape for him.

With all due respect, I really do not buy that.

This time the estate did listen to us fans. There also is a high quality multitrack audio recording available for the wembley show. That's why the estate chose wembley. Other shows do not have great audio quality, so that makes them commercially unreleasable.

[IMWhizzle]

Only 212 people want this LA on Bluray? Oh come on!

You never know what the estate may find meanwhile...

[charismatic]

In reference from the Janet video for YOU,
I thought I read that it was actually filmed before anyone was in the venue, hence the great close ups and such.

And then mixed in shots of it being live with an audience.

I think there were parts that were shot without the audience, but those were the close up where she is square in front of the camera. the other shots are from the actual live concerts. I really had hope they had, one, captured this on film, and two did the entire show. So now I know that it was captured on film, but only a couple of songs were shot. :-(((. I want a show from Europe to be released so bad because she did different things on those legs that she didn't do in the U.S.

[Hunterr]

I'm sure at the least, jumbotron feeds were taped for archival purposes (that goes for any festival gig, arena, or stadium shows for any artist).

I'd love a NUMBER ONES TOUR dvd. Saw her 4th row center in Tampa! My only disappointment was unlike the previous legs of that tour, she only wore ONE outfit, despite leaving the stage for interludes.

[moon2008]

Ok, let me be more clear. As I have stated, yes I am aware that film cameras did shoot footage. What I am saying is to my knowledge, from what I have been told. A COMPLETE (single night) concert film of full concert performance was not shot on film with a multicam setup (I'm talking the equivalent of the nocturne video set up which was probably at least 8-10 cameras). Film cameras were present on many of the Bad shows to capture tour footage for music videos, documentation and the moonwalker project.

It seems if a concert/film Blu Ray was put together from these film elements. It would be cut together from multiple shows and look like the APOM video or MITM Moonwalker segment which took elements from several concerts.

Look, it was 25 years ago and memories get hazy, and I am just sharing info I have heard from actual people in the business.
I would love for a complete multi-cam concert film to exists, but I just don't think it exists. I would love to be wrong though.

Some of that performance footage in moonwalker was actually taken from the original source tapes from the jumbotron feeds (u-matic) and apparently transferred/converted to 35mm film, while some footage being filmed solely for moonwalker. A massive amount of footage from the US concert used during MITM (Bad Jacket) was also used for the MTV specials (Bad Around The World). It's also safe to say that Michael had the last LA show as a personal VHS as well, at least there's a copy floating around somewhere. A lot of footage from those LA shows/last show was used for various documentaries/specials, and judging from the "one" dvd, it might have been considered for some kind of release at one point. So i believe it is possible for a HD release of the Bad tour, given if footage was first converted to 35mm. Whether or not that will actually happen, I really don't know.

[Rudolf]

Some of that performance footage in moonwalker was actually taken from the original source tapes from the jumbotron feeds (u-matic) and apparently transferred/converted to 35mm film, while some footage being filmed solely for moonwalker. A massive amount of footage from the US concert used during MITM (Bad Jacket) was also used for the MTV specials (Bad Around The World). It's also safe to say that Michael had the last LA show as a personal VHS as well, at least there's a copy floating around somewhere. A lot of footage from those LA shows/last show was used for various documentaries/specials, and judging from the "one" dvd, it might have been considered for some kind of release at one point. So i believe it is possible for a HD release of the Bad tour, given if footage was first converted to 35mm. Whether or not that will actually happen, I really don't know.

Please explain me how can a tape be converted to 35 mm film? lol
Tape is tape. It has rather low resolution. 35 mm film is roughly 4K pixels. Now how can that be transfered to such amount if it was already shot on tape.

[Falcon]

Yes..,. the Jubbotron feeds were analogue SD. Transferring those to film woyld result in the SD source on a HD film...which looks exactly the same (but will be better preserved over time when stored..lol).