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On The Subject Of Mr Massot...


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As you may know, there was a film released in the 90s called 'The First Cuts'- by Joe Massot. Massot happened to be the man responsible for directing TSRTS until he was fired and replaced. However, the footage that Massot had already set down was the footage that was used. Massot retained the unused film (which I think is now owned by Warner Bros or something), some of which surfaced in The First Cuts as an alternatley shot Rain Song and other snippets. Trouble is... im sure only about 4 people on the planet own the film.

As you may have seen in the DVD and new release of TSRTS, the menus and short film sections are host to 1 or 2 second parts of film from the TSRTS stash. There must be more out there. In TSRTS only 1 of the 3 nights footage is being used at any one time, that leaves 2 nights of the same section still in the vaults (and im pretty sure there are different camera angles also).

What Im trying to get at is that Massot or Clifton, Page or WB are sitting on several tons of MSG 73' high quality footage. Page, for a fact, at one time, had the soundboards for all 3 nights in complete form.

Do you think there would ever be the chance of the footage surfacing? Im thinking maybe all 3 nights on different DVDs with the appropriate soundboards. This would be a hell of a task as most of the footage is in pieces and is so delicate now. Massot died in 2002 by the way.

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As you may know, there was a film released in the 90s called 'The First Cuts'- by Joe Massot. Massot happened to be the man responsible for directing TSRTS until he was fired and replaced. However, the footage that Massot had already set down was the footage that was used. Massot retained the unused film (which I think is now owned by Warner Bros or something), some of which surfaced in The First Cuts as an alternatley shot Rain Song and other snippets. Trouble is... im sure only about 4 people on the planet own the film.

As you may have seen in the DVD and new release of TSRTS, the menus and short film sections are host to 1 or 2 second parts of film from the TSRTS stash. There must be more out there. In TSRTS only 1 of the 3 nights footage is being used at any one time, that leaves 2 nights of the same section still in the vaults (and im pretty sure there are different camera angles also).

What Im trying to get at is that Massot or Clifton, Page or WB are sitting on several tons of MSG 73' high quality footage. Page, for a fact, at one time, had the soundboards for all 3 nights in complete form.

Do you think there would ever be the chance of the footage surfacing? Im thinking maybe all 3 nights on different DVDs with the appropriate soundboards. This would be a hell of a task as most of the footage is in pieces and is so delicate now. Massot died in 2002 by the way.

I have an original VHS edition of 'The First Cuts' in it's original packaging. It was released in 1990. The First

Cuts is just snippets they had been unable to confiscate, and IMHO the only interesting one pertains to Robert's

fantasy sequence, where he interacts with his wife Maureen at the castle as opposed to the damsel in distress.

Anyway, the film was financed by the band; any footage of consequence is undoubtedly in Jimmy's possession.

We'll probably never see everything released because from Warner Brothers' perspective there is insufficient

demand for it and there are far too many gaps in the source footage.

Peter Grant was right when he said it was the most expensive home movie ever made.

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I own it also. My fave part is when they interview some of the crowd wating outside to get in. Gives you a real 70's feel to it.

P.S. Well it looks like you know 2 out of the 4 who own the Fianl Cuts now. :D

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Oh you gits, haha! I have tried to get hold of it for ages but to no avail.

I think someone should edit Pagey's will to leave all the footage to SteveAJones, do you think you can fix that Steve?? I just look at the stuff on the DVD menus and sequence in the DVD and think, theres so much more out there. And theres the 16 track tapes still availiable from all 3 nights. Imagine the awesomeness of a 7 or 8 hour DVD with totally unedited performances from all 3 nights!

I swear there is good footage of pittsburgh 73' also. You see it in the DVD's heartbreaker intro, that long shot of Page doing the splits looks pro shot. Wasnt it a test for TSRTS? If so do you think thats lying about somewhere?

Also I vividly recall watching pro shot footage of one of the 79' copenhagen gigs, maybe I was dreaming, but it was on youtube before the massive sweep of all led zep videos a few years ago. They played TSRTS, maybe it was just knebworth lablled wrong.

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Oh you gits, haha! I have tried to get hold of it for ages but to no avail.

I think someone should edit Pagey's will to leave all the footage to SteveAJones, do you think you can fix that Steve?? I just look at the stuff on the DVD menus and sequence in the DVD and think, theres so much more out there. And theres the 16 track tapes still availiable from all 3 nights. Imagine the awesomeness of a 7 or 8 hour DVD with totally unedited performances from all 3 nights!

I swear there is good footage of pittsburgh 73' also. You see it in the DVD's heartbreaker intro, that long shot of Page doing the splits looks pro shot. Wasnt it a test for TSRTS? If so do you think thats lying about somewhere?

Also I vividly recall watching pro shot footage of one of the 79' copenhagen gigs, maybe I was dreaming, but it was on youtube before the massive sweep of all led zep videos a few years ago. They played TSRTS, maybe it was just knebworth lablled wrong.

Oh, I'd be flattered but I don't expect that day will come any time soon, if ever.

Anyway, you seem to have surmised the quality of the unedited footage to be high, but I seriously doubt it.

Fantasy segments were used to disguise gaps in the concert footage, after all. It's quite plausible some test

filming was done of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore concerts, but I suspect it was minimal on account of the expense involved. I think it cost the band something like $85,000 just to get what they got. Again, anything

they were able to confiscate from Massot would undoubtedly be in Page's possession by this time.

I've never heard of pro-shot footage from Copenhagen '79. Seems highly implausible given the low-key,

warm-up dates they were. I believe what you saw was pro-shot Knebworth '79 footage, much of which

has surfaced in recent years. It's a shame they haven't done a Knebworth '79 boxed set, given the high

quality audio and video recordings they do have. There were rumors of doing a 25th Anniversary release

but nothing ever came of it.

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Fantasy segments were used to disguise gaps in the concert footage, after all.

I've never believed that. Seriously, how are you gonna wind up with those sized gaps after 3 nights of filming?

There's no way they missed the solo to No Quarter 3 nights in a row with a full camera crew rolling the entire time. The footage is there. The same goes for the Shepperton studio re-shoot, it was done for cinematic effect,

not because of gaps in the footage.

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I've never believed that. Seriously, how are you gonna wind up with those sized gaps after 3 nights of filming?

There's no way they missed the solo to No Quarter 3 nights in a row with a full camera crew rolling the entire time. The footage is there. The same goes for the Shepperton studio re-shoot, it was done for cinematic effect,

not because of gaps in the footage.

"They filmed three nights at the Garden and never got one complete take of 'Whole Lotta Love'. We always planned for it to be more than just a concert film" - Peter Grant.

"Peter Grant arranged for me to visit his home in Hampstead in March 1974 where I viewed his (Massot's) attempt at making a film on Led Zeppelin. It was a complete mess...What Jimmy didn't realize was that tape (film) doesn't have sprockets. It doesn't have synch. Jimmy could never understand when he saw some of Joe Massot's footage, why we couldn't alter the synch. I said to Led Zeppelin, 'If you are prepared to take the bits of Madison Square Garden including a couple of incredible action shots, I'll play you the soundtracks, project the bits on a huge screen in front of you and we'll put the cameras between you and the screen. When the shots come on, the soundtrack will be right, you play along and I'll shoot you again".

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"They filmed three nights at the Garden and never got one complete take of 'Whole Lotta Love'. We always planned for it to be more than just a concert film" - Peter Grant.

"Peter Grant arranged for me to visit his home in Hampstead in March 1974 where I viewed his (Massot's) attempt at making a film on Led Zeppelin. It was a complete mess...What Jimmy didn't realize was that tape (film) doesn't have sprockets. It doesn't have synch. Jimmy could never understand when he saw some of Joe Massot's footage, why we couldn't alter the synch. I said to Led Zeppelin, 'If you are prepared to take the bits of Madison Square Garden including a couple of incredible action shots, I'll play you the soundtracks, project the bits on a huge screen in front of you and we'll put the cameras between you and the screen. When the shots come on, the soundtrack will be right, you play along and I'll shoot you again".

Example of why I still don't believe it: the overhead crane shot with the slow zoom on Plant for the first 3 verses of Stairway to Heaven. That was shot for production value, not missing or out of synch footage.

I personally think their new director wanted to get more involved in the project than he should have been allowed.

The tape/film doesn't have sprockets explaination doesn't make sense, film has sprockets, tape doesn't.

Why is so much of it in synch and the rest unable to be synched up? I don't buy it at all.

After 3 nights of multiple camera filming I find it hard to believe they were left with that many holes to fill.

I think Peter Grants quote best sums it up: "We always planned for it to be more than just a concert film".

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The Beatles and The Stones were way ahead of Zep in this aspect - ie. filming themselves.

Zep should and could have made a straight concert film, which is what I believe the world wanted to see and hear. I'm sure the whole making of TSRTS would make a nice story.

As much as TSRTS is a memorable document, I do feel and wish that some of the fantasy parts weren't in it. I mean, what's the point - I just want to watch and listen to the band play, not watch some indulgent sequence of Robert with his damsel in distress. I don't mind that it's done in the spirit of fun, but the best parts for me were undoubtedly just watching Robert, Jimmy, John Paul Jones and Bonham PLAY. The rest of it was interesting but from a b-roll perspective, and it does feel that they cut to the wrong parts when what we wanted was the music. Hence, the idea that they were covering up unshot parts.

It does seem implausible that they didn't capture everything, and yet, who knows? Maybe the whole thing was just sloppily handled. The boys should have handled it better. TSRTS is somewhat ad hoc!

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  • 2 months later...

I have an original VHS edition of 'The First Cuts' in it's original packaging. It was released in 1990. The First

Cuts is just snippets they had been unable to confiscate, and IMHO the only interesting one pertains to Robert's

fantasy sequence, where he interacts with his wife Maureen at the castle as opposed to the damsel in distress.

Anyway, the film was financed by the band; any footage of consequence is undoubtedly in Jimmy's possession.

We'll probably never see everything released because from Warner Brothers' perspective there is insufficient

demand for it and there are far too many gaps in the source footage.

Peter Grant was right when he said it was the most expensive home movie ever made.

Speaking of Home Movies, I've seen the still pictures from Japan in 1971 where Bonzo, Page & Plant are walking around with Super 8MM cameras... I'd LOVE to see some of that pop up. Imagine the footage of them when they went to India!

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Example of why I still don't believe it: the overhead crane shot with the slow zoom on Plant for the first 3 verses of Stairway to Heaven. That was shot for production value, not missing or out of synch footage.

I personally think their new director wanted to get more involved in the project than he should have been allowed.

The tape/film doesn't have sprockets explaination doesn't make sense, film has sprockets, tape doesn't.

Why is so much of it in synch and the rest unable to be synched up? I don't buy it at all.

After 3 nights of multiple camera filming I find it hard to believe they were left with that many holes to fill.

I think Peter Grants quote best sums it up: "We always planned for it to be more than just a concert film".

I agree that the fantasy sequences and perhaps even the reshoots likely werent just about plugging unintensional gaps. However if does seem likely that if the band had always planned to add in extra material then they may not have been concerned with getting complete footbage of the shows hence the gaps.

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Film would have been a problem if recording long sequences, since film loads are designed to shoot 10 min sequences for 400 foot loads. Depends on the film cans they used. Dazed, WLL, etc would have been potential issues with said "gaps" -

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As you may have seen in the DVD and new release of TSRTS, the menus and short film sections are host to 1 or 2 second parts of film from the TSRTS stash. There must be more out there. In TSRTS only 1 of the 3 nights footage is being used at any one time, that leaves 2 nights of the same section still in the vaults (and im pretty sure there are different camera angles also).

What Im trying to get at is that Massot or Clifton, Page or WB are sitting on several tons of MSG 73' high quality footage. Page, for a fact, at one time, had the soundboards for all 3 nights in complete form.

Do you think there would ever be the chance of the footage surfacing? Im thinking maybe all 3 nights on different DVDs with the appropriate soundboards. This would be a hell of a task as most of the footage is in pieces and is so delicate now. Massot died in 2002 by the way.

This makes sense to me. You have caused me rethink my whole position on the filming of TSRTS. After filming of three nights I believe there is definitely enough footage from the other nights to fill in any gaps. It doesn't have to be synced up perfectly. I'm not looking for perfection. They could even use use some still shots as they did with 70 RAH.

What I would like to see like many of you is a full '73 concert from MSG with the original set list and without the fantasy sequences and other offstage footage. Some backstage footage, interviewing with people outside the venue, etc. would be great for menu bonuses.

I think the band knows the time to do this would of been with the remastered DVD as a second disc or?, but I definitely recall a band member commenting that legally they were not able to alter the original film only the soundtrack. I think that is the problem. It's the legal side of things.

Since the band seems in agreement that this was not one of their most outstanding concerts would they even have the interest in pursuing this any further legally?

Well if it was up to me the answer would be yes and perhaps it could be released on DVD in combination with a release of other live material on DVD and/or CD.

I don't see the band pursuing this to release the concert by itself or as a part of a 73 MSG box set.

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Example of why I still don't believe it: the overhead crane shot with the slow zoom on Plant for the first 3 verses of Stairway to Heaven.

My filmmaker's eye tells me that the crane shot Snapper mentions was filmed in 1974 for the additional shoots for TSRTS. There are no cranes visible in any long shots from MSG, nor in any other song, I recall. You can spot such footage very easily in the film - it's lit quite differently from the MSG footage. Plus you see angles that weren't captured or were difficult to capture at MSG.

I don't know if people realise how ad hoc the MSG shoot was - there are numerous quotes from the Zep posse to support this. It seems poorly organised, which reflects the uneven amount of usable footage captured. For example, one can't compare it to other 1970s concert movies like The Last Waltz, where Martin Scorsese had several top class cinematographers individually operating cameras, filming in a specially-built set and appropriately-lit concert venue. And that was a one-night-only show! Why is it visually more complete? Because they had several months to prepare.

In summary, filming a near-three hour show without much preparation time was bound to have problems. Just because the cameras were there for three nights does not mean they captured full shows or songs. Let alone capture usable footage. I'm tempted to file this discussion under "What if...?"

Meanwhile, enjoy what ya got, folks!

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Therein the shame more concerts were not properly documented throughout the 70s, as previously discussed.

One of the great losses in the history of popular entertainment.

Agreed.

Yet part of me perversely loves the fact that there are so few visual documents available. I think it adds to the Zep mystique in our 21st century instant gratification download world. And it allows one's own imagination to visualise what one wants.

However, I wonder, in the decades ahead when the remaining members have sadly shuffled off this mortal coil, how the Zep legacy will be treated by Atlantic Records in their absence. That is, if there's any record companies left by then. Damn, I've just done a "What if...?" D'oh!

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