October 4th
Project takes Sanctuary!
Since this site was launched in June 2004, great
progress has been made with the Born to Boogie project, leading closer to
the realisation of the definitive Marc Bolan & T.Rex visual experience.
The release label chosen for the project is Sanctuary. Their recent achievements
include returning Morrissey to the top of the charts, two number one UK hit
singles (Mad World from Donnie Darko and the Ozzy & Kelly Osborne duet)
plus best-selling DVDs for the Who (The Kids Are Alright) and The Undertones.
Sanctuary are taking every care to produce the finest quality product, to
work with the people who were close to T.Rex in 1972, and to employ the best
engineers, editors, directors and producers.
| Brian Dunham hands Mark Roberts of Sanctuary Group the first of the Born to Boogie film cans |
On 6 September 2004, the old cans of film were transported from a warehouse in Middlesex to a facility in Wardour Street, Soho, for cleaning: removing dust, grime and old bits of glue, bathing the films in chemicals to repair scratches, and bringing them up to the best possible standard for transfer to digital.
An original colour negative of the second Wembley concert has been located. This is being worked on to restore the picture quality and to reveal the movie in high definition rosy-cheeked glory for the first time. (There will be no changes made to the actual content of the original movie.)
Editing work is underway to construct and re-construct the Wembley concerts for the second of the two DVDs. Split-screen technology is being utilised to show performances from different angles at the same time: stage left, stage right, front of stage and the rear of the Empire Pool. Some of the film is in colour, some in black and white, and when mixed together they make an amazing effect.
You can see Marc, Mickey, Steve and Bill from multi-angles all at once. The colour picture quality is better than anything seen before. Cadilac, Girl and Summertime Blues from the second concert – missing from the original movie – have been located and matched to sound tapes.
Work has yet to begin on restoring and mixing the sound, but when it does, the legendary Tony Visconti will be at the controls. We are delighted to have Tony on board for this project.
An additional element of the DVD will be a new documentary about the making of Born to Boogie and the DVD project itself. BAFTA-nominated Mark Allen, director of the DVD, began filming for this on 11 October at a television studio in Bayswater, London W2.
| Brian Dunham and Rolan Bolan in interview mode, Friday 22 October 2004 |
 |
Rolan Bolan interviewed Tony Visconti, Mick Grey was interviewed with Emperor Rosko, and several fans who were at Wembley on 18 March 1972 recalled their memories of the day. All were treated to a special screening of previously unseen footage: fans outside the Empire Pool, a new edit of Jeepster with four-screen imagery, and a rehearsal edit of Tutti Frutti from the Apple sessions.
Other major figures from 1972 in discussion with the producers
to work on the project include Keith Morris, BP Fallon, and Masayoshi Sukita.
Additional key people have been contacted in the hope that they, too, will
come on board.
There is still a long way to go and the initial production process will take
another two months at least. The provisional release date is May 2005, with
a serious marketing campaign being lined up to ensure that everyone knows
about Born to Boogie.
If you happen to be in possession of any original super-8 or cine-film of the band in 1972, please contact us via the website email address. We would also be interested to hear about any rare items of memorabilia specific to 1972 which might be of use for illustrating the booklet or other elements of the DVD.
October 26th
Fresh developments on the Born to Boogie project include another marathon filming session for the new documentary. Rolan Bolan has interviewed Brian Dunham, Keith Morris, Bob Harris and Bill Legend. We are especially happy that Bill is now a part of the Born to Boogie 2004 team.
He recently met Tony Visconti and Rolan at a special reception hosted by Sanctuary, and recalled how at the movie Premiere he sat next to Elton John in the front row, having bumped into him on the way into the cinema; he was glad that Elton was able to divert some of the fans' attention away from him. There will be more information about Bill in forthcoming site updates.
Bob Harris came armed with two pages of Marc's poetry, given to him in the late 1960s and signed in Marc's fair hand. Bob had discovered these by chance inside his copy of Prophets, Seers and Sages, which he had fished out of his record collection the night before.
Bob generously gave one of the poems to Rolan, who read it out during their interview. Bob has fond recollections of the Wembley gigs, and many other stories about his time on the road with Marc and the band.
The core filming for the documentary is now complete, so focus will return to revealing the secrets of the original film cans
