Extras:
81 minutes of features about the making of Beatles Anthology
Director:
Geoff Wonfor
Producer:
Chips Chipperfield
Writer:
Bob Smeaton
The Band:
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
The Beatles Anthology
is a lengthy documentary about the band that any fan will already know about
given how it was broadcast on ITV a few years ago - at a time before George Harrison
passed away - and spawned two new singles which existed partly at the time but
which were only brought to the public's attention when this series was shown.
John Lennon (using old clips and soundbites), Paul McCartney, George
Harrison and Ringo Starr talk about the road travelled from their
beginnings growing up in Liverpool as well as their influences, all of which
paint the portrait as to how they made the big time, starting with hits like
Love Me Do, From Me To You, She Loves You and so on, although I prefer
later tracks like Lady Madonna, Hello Goodbye, Something and less
straight-forward ones such as A Day in the Life.
Anthology takes in temporary members Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best,
the band's gigs at The Cavern, their first No.1 with "Please Please Me",
early TV appearances, the concept of Beatlemania, their first US No.1 with
"I Want To Hold Your Hand" and subsequent breaking of the US market, their
films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Yellow Submarine", receiving their MBEs from
the Queen, their world tours, the death of Brian Epstein, their experiences
in India, the White album, the break-up of the band, the more recent release
of "Free As a Bird" as well as more in-depth looks at particular songs.
The disc is presented in the original 4:3 fullscreen ratio as was broadcast on
TV. There's a lot of different footage used and the quality can vary tremendously
but this isn't a problem with the discs' manufacturing. As Paul McCartney says
of the music quality of the old recordings - and this could be applied to the
varying picture quality, "It's not about the quality, it's about the story."
I didn't see a great amount of this series when it was shown on TV, but the
surround sound was a little odd the way they replicated the front speakers in
the rear when it came to the music pieces. Here there's options for Dolby Digital
5.1 and glorious DTS 5.1 sound. It's absolutely clear as a bell and makes
nice use of the rears for effects here and there.
This package contains the series on four discs, with two episodes to each disc
and a fifth one set aside for the extras. We've already had nearly ten hours
of material that's shown 'the making of The Beatles', so this section
concentrates on the Anthology project and the two songs that were spawned from
it as a result:
Recollections - June 1994 (17 mins):
Paul, George and Ringo sit around a table and reminisce about yester-year and
jam together.
Compiling the Anthology Albums (11 mins):
George Martin and the Beatles, individually, talk about how the albums
began with "Free As a Bird" then goes back to the early music just like
the series and how Martin insisted that an old recording machine was brought
in when it came to mixing some of the recordings from the time because that's
how it was done back then.
Back at Abbey Road - May 1995 (15 mins):
More chat as the same four sit in the famous studios and wax lyrical about how
sounds were created there on some tracks, as well as listening to music from
the album of the same name.
Recording "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love" (11 mins):
The two new tracks released in late 1994 and early 1995. ELO's Jeff Lynne
also interjects here and the band discuss how John's long-since-recorded
vocals were resurrected for these songs.
Production Team (13 mins):
Chat from those behind the scenes, including Jools Holland who
interviewed the band.
Making the "Free As a Bird" video (11 mins):
A detailed look at how it was put together with most chat coming from
director Joe Pytka.
"Real Love" video (4 mins):
The full video. Those looking for "Free As a Bird" can check out the final
programme where that one appears just before the end.
I've not marked these particular extras out of five, like I normally do,
because compared to the rest of this DVD release they're more like an extension
of those and not something that should be judged separately. It's all worthy
if you find the Beatles interesting in any capacity.
The main menus have a small amount of animation and Beatles music (what else?),
while sub-menus are static with more music. Subtitles are in 6 languages -
English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese - and the number of
chapters per episode varies, but totals 10.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
