I wonder if the concert movie 'sign 'o' the times' is sung live from beginning to end.I have serious doubts that on 'Hot thing' and "it's gonna be a beautiful night',Prince is singing live...
Anyone agrees?...
Is it true that the DVD is available for the Dutch market only?

jkj10 said:

Mostly.


U GOt the Look is not live--but Prince made that obviious by showing it as a dream sequence.

Actually, the performance was recorded live - but a lot of the footage was later found to be unusable (very grainy and stuff) and they had to reshoot a lot of it back at Paisley Park, miming to the music from the original performance.

So it's a bit of a mish-mash really.

There is an official dvd made by Warners for the Dutch market I believe, but it is just a transfer from the video version, not from the master tapes where they could have improved the sound.

metalorange said:

The speed of the Dutch DVD is too fast,
the image-quality is bad (lot of little light-dots), indeed a video-transfer .....
BAD RELEASE, but with a good sound

There's also a Brazilian DVD, without any dots but it's very dark.
The speed of this one is correct, but the soundquality is bad.

my advice: just wait a little bit longer for a good release

jkj10 said:

Almost all of the "SOTT" film was shot on a soundstage in Paisley Park. You can get bootleg DVDs of the outtakes.

not live. Its a recreation. NOT LIVE.

Shapeshifter said:

Trust me the film was not filmed at PP. Only "U got the look" was filmed there. The rest of the film was filmed over seas.....I believe Holland? Tust me
[Edited 10/13/04 13:47pm]

You can trust these folks all you want, but the truth is that the film shot overseas was mostly unusable due to the last minute nature of the production and the unavailability of decent equipment and a reliable crew to operate it. Most of it had to be re-created at the Paisley Park soundstage and after realizing the synch issues involved, they were forced to re-record the music at Sunset Sound. Watch the end titles of the film and you will see the credit for the work done at both places. I worked at Sunset Sound in the early 90's with a guy named Mike Kloster who assisted on those sessions.

the only footage I can recall used that was from Holland is a brief shot during the guitar solo break in Never Take The Place of Your Man, and some wide pans during "Beautiful Night"

the rest is all a recreation... I have seen the outtakes, take after take from every angle for Housequake, Hot Thing, If I Was Your Girlfriend. These takes are movie slated and they run an audio tape that starts before every "action". This is a fact!

prime said:

PS... "U GOt the Look" was filmed on a concert stage during the european tour
(Paris?)....as a mimed music video shoot with a selected audience. I think this is documented in a few books...

prime said:

[/quote]

prime said:

Nope...would like 2 trust you though but you are not right here.
U Got The Look was filmed in Paris during a long day of repeating and repeating (etc). A small crowd of people/fans was selected to be in it.

During videoshot there was also good catering/food where crew and fans mixed.

The live part was initialy shot in Rotterdam (and Antwerp if I'm correct) but later mostly corrected or reshot at PP.

Jestyr and dualboot are right.

According to the relevant entries in the mighty The Vault book:

16 July 1987
With Sheena Easton guesting onstage, footage for the video of 'U Got The Look' is shot at Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy during a day off in Paris. The video was choreographed by Cat. The fans queuing for the front seats for the June 15th concert had been given a special invitation to make up the audience for the video shoot. Towards the end of the day, Prince treated the small crowd of around 100 fans to a 50 minute session of improvised acoustic guitar playing.

25 June 1987
Taking everyone by complete surprise, Prince announces his desision to film the remaining shows of the tour. Having lost interest in continuing the tour to the US, he saw a concert film as a way to make up for the cancelled shows and the absence of a US tour. He was frustrated by the weak response to Sign O The Times and single 'If I was Your Girlfriend'.

26 June 1987
First of three shows at the Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Shortly after the concert, a film team arrived from England and the second and third performances at the Ahoy were filmed. Mobile recording equipment had also been brought in and Prince's engineer and technician Susan Rogers oversaw the recording of the concerts.

6 July 1987
When examining the Sign O The Times toor recordings from Europe, it was discovered that there wasn't enough separation between the channels on the multi-track tape. The decision was made to have most band members re-record their parts. Prince and the band members worked on overdubs both at Sunset Sound and Paisley Park in July.

15 July 1987
The vidoe of U Got The Look premieres on MTV.

18 July 1987
Performance scenes, including many closeups, are filmed at Paisley Park from July 18th to the 23rd. A few hundred extras filled up the Soundstage as Prince and the bandlip-synched their way through the pre-recorded concert recording. It was necessary to re-shooot the show since very litle of the footage that had been shot in Europe could be used; the footage was too grainy and dark because thay had not been able to get the proper lighting on such short notice.

Some acting segments were also shot on a small film set that had been built at Paisley Park under supervision of Roy Bennett. Prince wanted to incorporate a storyline into the film by inserting brief spoken scenes between a few of the songs.

6 August 1987
Prince goes to Los Angeles to work on the editing of the Sign O The Times film. At the same time, Susan Rogers mixed the audio recording for the film at Warner Soundstage in Los Angeles.

late August 1987
The Sign O The Times film is completed, having cost about $2.5 million to produce. Prince wanted to release the film immediately. Warner Bros.' film division wasn't interested in the film and it was determined that a major studio wasn't going to be able to release the film quickly enough. Instead, Prince's management struck a deal with Cineplex Odeon Films, the distribution arm of the 1,500-screen, Toronto-based theatre chain. Thus, the film didn't apply to Prince's contract with Warner Bros. for his dramatic features.



So there you have it, the greatest live concert film, that is neither live nor from a real concert! The last bit makes me wonder who actually owns the rights to the film, and whether that is the reason why it hasn't been properly transferred to dvd by Warners.

I have to admit,I was shocked when I found out (years later) that the 'SOTT' concert film isn't really "live" at all.It's still my favorite concert movie.But it's a shame that Prince wasn't able to use the original live footage.

metalorange said:

Thanks for that, however you say that the 'U Got The Look' video was shot on the 16th July, and then say that the video premieres on MTV on the 15th July???

i have a self-recorded vhs from a concert of SOTT, taken in dortmund, germany. it is totally original, no official production.
this discussion made me curious, i'll watch it today!

Shockamattica said:

Okay, okay, it was the 16th of JUNE - hey, I had a lot to type! Even Prince isn't capable of time-travel... or is he...?
[Edited 10/14/04 4:49am]

metalorange said:

Awwhhh, come on!!! He must be!!!

Totally agree with the re-shooting it part.

But what about the audio? I always thought it was supposed to be live audio with some obvious overdubs.... but one of the comments above suggests that a LOT of the audio was overdubbed.

Is any of the audio actually real?
(Of course on Forever in My LIfe if it was real he was obviously using a drum machine cuz Sheila is upfront singing).

i also have copies on dvd of two shows from that year , the march first avenue show and also new years eve show from paisley park , prince sang most songs libe but he DEFINATELY lip synchs "its gonna be a beautiful night" at both shows , i was really dissapointed cause i always thaught that prince was always a pure live performer.

jkj10 said:

I bought the DVD at a mall in Columbia, MO. It can also be ordered at www.bn.com (barnes and noble). It's cool to have it on DVD, but the quality is actually pretty poor. A proper DVD release would be nice : P

I didn't think he was lipsynching anything on the new years concert.... let me watch that thing again!

dodgydicko said:

ok, so a lot of the film was lip synched. Yeah, yeah...I can live with that.

However, what I continued to be disappointed about is that there is no Adore performed!!

Does any footage exist with him singing one of my fav songs eva??
[Edited 10/14/04 17:43pm]

GAPeach said:

yeah..wassup wit DAT?? i just found a new copy at my local tower records...all of the writing is in portuguese/says its produced in brasil

sweet said:

Read the 4th post down.

It ain't f*cking live. This should go in the FAQ already.