Update on the film...
This courtesy of Steve Winn, of the Beatlegs forum...
Hi all,
I was lucky enough last week to accompany my brother to a special
editing session for a new Let It Be promo DVD he was assembling in a Los Angeles editing suite last week (he didn't actually work on the forthcoming DVD release).
Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to spend several hours watching the nearly final product and combing through a bunch of production notes.
The film and features I watched were on a hard drive so I have no idea what the actual discs or the DVD packaging will look like, sorry. Some of the footage was still silent and not all of the options I clicked on worked, but here's a very rough preview. It's apparently not due until March 2005 so it may still change.
Let It Be DVD
"3 disc 5.1 special edition" with extra features to be followed by a single "plain vanilla" disc 6 months later.
The special edition features all the original film footage that was
used in the original 1970 theatrical release of Let It Be spread over the first 2 discs (Disc 1 is entitled Twickenham and Disc 2 Apple). Over 79 minutes in total of previously unseen footage has been added into both discs. An optional on-screen apple logo is
available that pops up in the screen corner whenever "new" material appears, but there is no branching option that allows you to either select the new footage or the original footage.
I didn't have time to watch the entire 2 discs but from what I did see the Octopuses Garden sequence has been almost doubled. Entirely new rehearsal sequences have been added for Something, I Lost My Little Girl, All Things Must Pass, She Came In Thru The Bathroom Window, Plain Yoko Jam, Fancy My Chances With You, Rock'n'Roll Music, Blues Aren't For Ringo, Isn't It A Pity and more. There
seems to be heaps more footage of George Harrison.
Both discs apparently feature an audio commentary by The Beatles with Michael Lindsay Hogg, Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman (all culled from audio recordings made during the sessions). This didn't work yet on the demo I watched.
The third disc features even more bonus material including:
AS NATURE INTENDED: 34 minute documentary on the Let It Be sessions, includes new interviews with George Martin, Billy Preston and Michael Lindsay Hogg, as well as archive interviews with John Lennon and George, Paul and Ringo interviews from the Anthology
series (including a few snippets not seen before).
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: A collection of rare footage of The Beatles
recording in the studio (none of this is "Let It Be" era material). The footage listed includes And I Love Her, Paperback Writer, Rain, All You Need Is Love, Hey Bulldog, Lady Madonna, Helter Skelter, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Blackbird, Tutti Frutti, Hey Jude (this track alone went for 20 minutes), St Louis Blues.
ACROSS TO ABBEY ROAD: The Abbey Road album tracks of Oh Darling, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, Something and Maxwell's Silver Hammer all matched up to footage from the Let It Be rehearsals to create brand new "video clips".
CHIMNEY SWEEP: Option didn't work - no details on notes.
BEHIND THE SHUTTERS: Option didn't work - no details on notes.
THE NAKED TRUTH: A featurette on the production of the Naked album
including footage of Paul McCartney at a playback session. Ends with a new clip created for Across The Universe using Let It Be footage.
TRAILERS: Let It Be, The Beatles Anthology, Yellow Submarine, The
First US Visit.
THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO: Option didn't work - no details on notes.
