nutopia999
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On August 19,1980, Jack Douglas’ friend, director Jay Dubin, was hired to videotape promotional footage of John & Yoko performing a few Double Fantasy songs at The Hit Factory studios. This footage is historically significant as it is the final footage of John performing music.
Performances of “I’m Losing You” and “I’m Moving On” were definitely recorded, and possibly one or two other songs. Additionally, some live studio jams and/or warm up rehearsals **might** have been captured on videotape, but this is not confirmed.
Producer Jack Douglas, who saw the videotape footage, described the footage of John as “fantastic” and “beautiful.”
Director Dubin videotaped John from four different camera angles, and he videotaped the Double Fantasy session musicians as well, with the intention of editing all the various camera angles and musicians together in post-production to create polished professional music promotional videos.
However, John wore his hair in a ponytail for the video shoot, and he apparently didn’t like how his hair looked in the footage. So after a few performance takes, John decides to cover up his hair and wear a baseball cap for the rest of his takes. This info is known because the Jack Douglas "hidden mic" tapes leaked in the 1980s, capturing John's dialogue with the Director that night.
Mr. Dubin’s videotapes were given to John & Yoko at the end of the session that night and never edited. And, apparently the next day, August 20, 1980, John skipped over to Vidal Sassoon Salon at 803 Madison Avenue to get his long hair cut off.
One perennial mystery is: Did John destroy some (or all) of the August 1980 videotape performance footage of himself because he didn't like his hair -- or did he simply file the videotapes away in the Lennon tape archive? And if the video footage exists in whole (or in part), what happened to it?
All the evidence thus far suggests there were only two total open reel Type C 1-inch videotapes recorded:
So what happened to John's footage?
Way back in 2010, I started a thread on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums to try and determine the fate of John’s 1980 videotape footage.
I read that Beatles author Jörg Pieper had written a book in which his research led him to believe that at least some of John’s Hit Factory videotape footage survives.
So I invited Mr. Pieper to the thread to share what he had learned. Below is his post from Sept. 16, 2010 sharing his research findings that John’s Hit Factory videotape footage was **apparently stolen** from The Dakota sometime between 1980 – 1982, and the stolen videotape footage of John includes performances of "I'm Losing You" and "Starting Over."
Several years later, in 2015, Mr. Pieper’s theory that John’s footage exists was verified to be true when stills and a snippet of video of John performing in August 1980 at The Hit Factory surfaced online.
If John's Hit Factory performance videotape footage was stolen from The Dakota sometime between 1980 -1982, I hope it is repatriated to the Lennon family.
The three stills below are from the brief snippet of footage that surfaced online in 2015. Note the clapperboard says "Roll #1." This is the videotape reel apparently missing from the Lennon archive and presumed to have been stolen in the early 1980s. John is wearing what appears to be Yoko's white baseball cap.
Below: 2010 post by author Jörg Pieper explaining his theory that John's videotape reel was stolen from The Dakota
=========================================================================
Source: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...nnon-music-videos.220986/page-11#post-5805747
By @beatlesonvideo
Jörg Pieper
September 16, 2010
Hello from Germany
Sorry for slow response, I was away from my PC for a while. I see you have an interesting discussion over here about one of my all time favourites: "DF footage".
To keep your expectations low, I confirm that I never saw any of John's part. My story starts many years ago with the Japanese TV special "Tsukai Ningen-Den" (1992), a good japanese contact told me that Yoko's brother Keisuke could shed some light onto Yoko's DF scenes. I was able to track down Keisuke's private Email address and I really got an answer after a while. He simply said that he don't want to be bothered about it and I should contact Yoko's lawyer. I never did !
After seeing the production board from Yoko's part, I never had any doubt that we are at least talking about two different 1" tapes, my theory: #1 John footage #2 Yoko footage, simple as that.
While researching for my first book "The Beatles Film & TV Chronicle 1961-70" I was in touch with somebody from the ORF (Austria), we had a friendly chat over the phone and he mentioned some rare film material incl. some DF footage. Through this friendly person I got a copy of a personal letter to him by somebody that I will simply call "X". In the letter from 1982 "X" mentions a 20 minute DF video tape. My co-author tracked down "X" and after a few phone calls we got the information that the footage includes scenes of I'm loosing You and Starting Over.
All this would simply explain why Yoko has never used any of John's scenes because she can't, because all her documentary stuff was done after 1982.
How did the tape #1 leave the Dakota ? Well, I leave this up to your own imagination. What can "X" do with this footage ? At the moment nothing.
So there is no big talk about it because all the copyrights belong to Yoko and we know how she handles it (see Tony Cox footage Feb.1970)
I'm some of you is asking about the identity of "X", I will not disclose it.
If you ask for any definitive proof of my story/theory, I can't offer any.
What can we do, nothing, it all depends on "X".
Best regards,
Jörg
Performances of “I’m Losing You” and “I’m Moving On” were definitely recorded, and possibly one or two other songs. Additionally, some live studio jams and/or warm up rehearsals **might** have been captured on videotape, but this is not confirmed.
Producer Jack Douglas, who saw the videotape footage, described the footage of John as “fantastic” and “beautiful.”
Director Dubin videotaped John from four different camera angles, and he videotaped the Double Fantasy session musicians as well, with the intention of editing all the various camera angles and musicians together in post-production to create polished professional music promotional videos.
However, John wore his hair in a ponytail for the video shoot, and he apparently didn’t like how his hair looked in the footage. So after a few performance takes, John decides to cover up his hair and wear a baseball cap for the rest of his takes. This info is known because the Jack Douglas "hidden mic" tapes leaked in the 1980s, capturing John's dialogue with the Director that night.
Mr. Dubin’s videotapes were given to John & Yoko at the end of the session that night and never edited. And, apparently the next day, August 20, 1980, John skipped over to Vidal Sassoon Salon at 803 Madison Avenue to get his long hair cut off.
One perennial mystery is: Did John destroy some (or all) of the August 1980 videotape performance footage of himself because he didn't like his hair -- or did he simply file the videotapes away in the Lennon tape archive? And if the video footage exists in whole (or in part), what happened to it?
All the evidence thus far suggests there were only two total open reel Type C 1-inch videotapes recorded:
- Roll #1: John
- Roll #2: Yoko
So what happened to John's footage?
Way back in 2010, I started a thread on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums to try and determine the fate of John’s 1980 videotape footage.
I read that Beatles author Jörg Pieper had written a book in which his research led him to believe that at least some of John’s Hit Factory videotape footage survives.
So I invited Mr. Pieper to the thread to share what he had learned. Below is his post from Sept. 16, 2010 sharing his research findings that John’s Hit Factory videotape footage was **apparently stolen** from The Dakota sometime between 1980 – 1982, and the stolen videotape footage of John includes performances of "I'm Losing You" and "Starting Over."
Several years later, in 2015, Mr. Pieper’s theory that John’s footage exists was verified to be true when stills and a snippet of video of John performing in August 1980 at The Hit Factory surfaced online.
If John's Hit Factory performance videotape footage was stolen from The Dakota sometime between 1980 -1982, I hope it is repatriated to the Lennon family.
The three stills below are from the brief snippet of footage that surfaced online in 2015. Note the clapperboard says "Roll #1." This is the videotape reel apparently missing from the Lennon archive and presumed to have been stolen in the early 1980s. John is wearing what appears to be Yoko's white baseball cap.
Below: 2010 post by author Jörg Pieper explaining his theory that John's videotape reel was stolen from The Dakota
=========================================================================
Source: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...nnon-music-videos.220986/page-11#post-5805747
By @beatlesonvideo
Jörg Pieper
September 16, 2010
Hello from Germany
Sorry for slow response, I was away from my PC for a while. I see you have an interesting discussion over here about one of my all time favourites: "DF footage".
To keep your expectations low, I confirm that I never saw any of John's part. My story starts many years ago with the Japanese TV special "Tsukai Ningen-Den" (1992), a good japanese contact told me that Yoko's brother Keisuke could shed some light onto Yoko's DF scenes. I was able to track down Keisuke's private Email address and I really got an answer after a while. He simply said that he don't want to be bothered about it and I should contact Yoko's lawyer. I never did !
After seeing the production board from Yoko's part, I never had any doubt that we are at least talking about two different 1" tapes, my theory: #1 John footage #2 Yoko footage, simple as that.
While researching for my first book "The Beatles Film & TV Chronicle 1961-70" I was in touch with somebody from the ORF (Austria), we had a friendly chat over the phone and he mentioned some rare film material incl. some DF footage. Through this friendly person I got a copy of a personal letter to him by somebody that I will simply call "X". In the letter from 1982 "X" mentions a 20 minute DF video tape. My co-author tracked down "X" and after a few phone calls we got the information that the footage includes scenes of I'm loosing You and Starting Over.
All this would simply explain why Yoko has never used any of John's scenes because she can't, because all her documentary stuff was done after 1982.
How did the tape #1 leave the Dakota ? Well, I leave this up to your own imagination. What can "X" do with this footage ? At the moment nothing.
So there is no big talk about it because all the copyrights belong to Yoko and we know how she handles it (see Tony Cox footage Feb.1970)
I'm some of you is asking about the identity of "X", I will not disclose it.
If you ask for any definitive proof of my story/theory, I can't offer any.
What can we do, nothing, it all depends on "X".
Best regards,
Jörg
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