Why not a 'Shadows story' movie?

[Uncleboko]

Ahem...

I believe Stormzy is a hotly tipped artist in the genre known as 'grime'.

I feel there is no chance of Hank recording any of *his* numbers...

George

Almost impossible to convert shouting to the guitar!

[Iain Purdon]

Also there doesn't seem to be that much film footage of The Shadows from the early 60s. I guess this is why we see the same few clips over and over i.e. FBI on Crackerjack or wherever, etc.

Yes that's exactly the problem. All the footage is already "out there" and many of us have seen it. The rights to use it would have to be secured too. It would be lovely but unless somebody wants to throw a lot of money at it I can't see it happening. The time for such a project to be undertaken by normal commercial interests would have been many years ago.

[drakula63]

There is the Pathe News clip of the Shadows backing Royston Ellis. Anyone seen this? I suspect it will be available to anyone working for the BBC by using their internal search system. I have all the details but since I have currently fallen out with my friend who works for the BBC, I suspect I won't be seeing it any time soon. And, of course, there's the appearance on Jim'll Fix It singing 'Run Billy Run' with Cliff. There is also a TOTP performance of Mary Anne.

All of these details were submitted by me to the BBC when I sent them my suggestions for The Shadows @ the BBC.

I'd love to see them if anyone has them or has access to them...

[Fenderman]

A lot of footage may have been wiped, lost or beyond restoration. As we all know, the BBC & ITV stupidly wiped massive amounts of 1950's/60's footage thinking it would serve no value in being kept (two results of this was the only TOTP appearance of The Beatles in 1966 and about 95% of the episodes of Color Me Pop).
Most of what survives is mostly them backing Cliff at the Royal Variety shows or stuff from abroad.

[drakula63]

A lot of footage may have been wiped, lost or beyond restoration. As we all know, the BBC & ITV stupidly wiped massive amounts of 1950's/60's footage thinking it would serve no value in being kept (two results of this was the only TOTP appearance of The Beatles in 1966 and about 95% of the episodes of Color Me Pop).
Most of what survives is mostly them backing Cliff at the Royal Variety shows or stuff from abroad.

True. Sadly. However, I'm pretty sure the three examples I mentioned DO exist at the BBC...

[MeBHank]

OK, I'm sticking my head above the parapet here, without knowing all the facts, in classic Justin style. This is mainly opinion and guesswork, but I felt like saying it.

The BBC is obviously being run by young people who base the output on what is 'fashionable'. Why else would Brian Matthew be unceremoniously dropped from 'Sounds of the Sixties', and the programme be relegated to an even earlier time when even fewer people are awake? I understand about catch-up services, but it's an example of how things are moving. I bet that SOTS will be dropped entirely from the BBC at some point in the not-too-distant future.

I've never been for or against the license, but the new angle that the Corporation is taking, and the disdain for anything that isn't up-to-date, or worthy of putting in front of a screaming audience, or a phone-in talent competition is putting me off. They're good at football coverage and the news.

All that a Shadows documentary would involve is a trawl through the archives, a quick bit of editing, a small clutch of new interviews and a newly recorded voice-over. Hardly breaking the bank. I get the impression that's all the effort that was made to make 'The Sound of Fury'. I'm not sure if money changes hands at the BBC when an artiste gets airtime to promote their latest work, but if it does then the money they receive in the summer from Hank and Demon Music Group would probably cover it.

Even though it's magical, gritty and has a proper happy ending (certainly in Hank and Bruce's cases) I doubt there's a hope in hell of seeing our favourite rags-to-riches story ever being dramatised.

I fully expect to get corrected at some point. Enter Mr Purdon.

J

[Iain Purdon]

How could I refuse such an invitation?!

This thread started with the idea of a Shadows story movie, which I think is unlikely. However you're right to suggest that a trawl through existing footage plus some new (or recycled) interviews with Hank, Bruce, Brian and Licorice would be quite easily done. BBC4 seems to be the home of that kind of thing.

I don't think money changes hands in the way I take you to mean. To take Graham Norton's show as an example, the artistes do it because it's a popular showcase for them. The BBC knows that and will only pay a normal TV appearance fee. On radio they get nothing beyond a taxi each way plus coffee and a sandwich.

On Chris's post above about unseen footage, I'm afraid I am fully retired from the BBC and have no access any more. Maybe someone reading this does have that access and could have a look? However I would say that if I had discovered it during my time at the BBC there's no way I would have been allowed to make copies for people. That would be potentially sackable!

[drakula63]

To some degree I can see why the 'risk' factor might make a film company or distributor wary of putting the money up for a Shadows movie, but what I cannot understand is why the BBC aren't interested in (at no or virtually no expense to themselves) making a Shadows @ the BBC programme. It would cost very little to go down the road and interview Brian and Bruce, say, for little segments in between the music. Or, better still, use interviews from BBC programmes such as Saturday Night at the Mill. How long would it take an editor to put together a one hour programme from clips? Two, three, four hours? So basically half of one shift. I know someone who works as an editor within the BBC and I know that such a task would be relatively simple. The editor could also stick the captions (i.e. Lower Thirds) onto the picture as well. With a detailed log sheet with locations of songs and timings, etc, it's no big deal and could be done (or at least 95% done) in a morning or afternoon. They would then have a programme that pays tribute to one of the country's most successful and influential groups and which could pad out the BBC Four schedules nicely and have a shelf-life of many years. Blimey, it's not as if we are talking about making a two hour documentary from scratch. In theory they've already got everything they need - and I'm happy to give them my services for free. The most difficult and time-consuming part would be the research, tracking down the songs and programmes and making a running order. I've already done that and in all cases I have the transmission dates and in some cases the actual programme numbers. Effectively it would be not very different to a news editor putting together a 'package' - just splicing ten or twenty clips together. What about an opening title I hear you ask? What about a silhouette of the Shadows and a photo of the outside of the BBC TV Centre. You make the silhouette appear as a shadow falling across the building. You fade in and out a simple caption that says 'The Shadows at the BBC'. This could probably be done in five minutes on the video equivalent of Photoshop. Of course it all has to be rendered and then published to a server, but so what? The whole thing would be ready by the weekend if you started on it tomorrow. So why don't they do it?

To quote Toyah... "it's a mystery."

[Moderne]

Maybe they're working on it already to coincide with Hank's visit to promote his new album. But if they did 'Shadows at the BBC', people would ask, "Why don't you do Cliff @ the Beeb?" - and we're back to the ingrained perception that so many people seem to have, which is - "Cliff and the Shads are c**p" as shown by the responses to a newspaper article which you referred to a few weeks ago. I hope I'm wrong; I don't see how they can argue with the case you make on the grounds of cost/time.

BTW Do you know why the clip of The Shads performing Don't Make My Baby Blue on TOTP has never been generally seen? All we get on YouTube is about a minute of it...

[drakula63]

Oops, when I said there's a clip of the Shads playing Mary Anne, I think I meant Don't Make My Baby Blue. Sadly all my notes are packed into boxes in the garage.

I have no idea why the song in its entirety has not been shown as, as far as I know, it DOES exist.

After the fiasco this evening - see The Secret Science of Pop - it looks like the BBC are happy to spend their, I mean OUR money on rubbish that does little more than prove something we already know and have known for years.

Oh and I even submitted a 'with Cliff' and 'without Cliff' variant of my proposed programme, just in case the BBC had a preference! As I say, I'm still waiting for a reply.