Fact #161821
When:
Short story:
Wham! are preparing for their first Chinese concert, in Peking, China, Asia.Full article:
Simon Napier-Bell (manager, Wham!) : In Peking, it was continual backhanders. Everything was marked up. They’d say, ‘Tonight we’re taking you to the Beijing Duck Restaurant,’ and we said, ‘That’s very nice of you,’ and they’d say, ‘That’ll be $35,000 please.’ You knew perfectly well that if you counted it up for 140 people it would only come to $2,000. It was endless, but we were playing for big stakes. I had been there before so I had factored all of that into the budget, so we didn’t end up over-budget.
With the filming, you’d see a nice location and start to place your cameras, and they’d say, ‘Ah, well, to place a camera there you have to apply in writing to the Bureau of Internal Affairs and it’ll take at least three months…” So that required another bribe to get round it.
To film it we got Lindsay Anderson and eight of the best cameramen… well, he said they were great, I thought most of them were crap. Lindsay is my godfather, and he was the most cantankerous man in the world. A bit like Somerset Maugham, when he got old, he liked being cantankerous. It gave him huge pleasure. It was actually Jazz Summers’ idea to use him.
Lindsay Anderson (film director) : I don’t think it’s a very bizarre idea, particularly as it was to be a documentary, not a promo.
Simon Napier-Bell : There was a wonderful scam with 35mm film. They had just taken delivery from France of the most up-to-the-minute Super 16 cameras, just as good as 35mm, and they wanted us to hire them. But if we didn’t want to hire their cameras, then 35mm film would cost us $100,000.
To make the filming even more fun, Lindsay didn’t get along with George. Lindsay saw in George every film producer who’d ever messed him around in his life.
Lindsay Anderson : I think that George is a fairly intelligent fellow in relation to the manipulation of music and himself. But that’s as far as it goes.
(Source : not known)
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With the filming, you’d see a nice location and start to place your cameras, and they’d say, ‘Ah, well, to place a camera there you have to apply in writing to the Bureau of Internal Affairs and it’ll take at least three months…” So that required another bribe to get round it.
To film it we got Lindsay Anderson and eight of the best cameramen… well, he said they were great, I thought most of them were crap. Lindsay is my godfather, and he was the most cantankerous man in the world. A bit like Somerset Maugham, when he got old, he liked being cantankerous. It gave him huge pleasure. It was actually Jazz Summers’ idea to use him.
Lindsay Anderson (film director) : I don’t think it’s a very bizarre idea, particularly as it was to be a documentary, not a promo.
Simon Napier-Bell : There was a wonderful scam with 35mm film. They had just taken delivery from France of the most up-to-the-minute Super 16 cameras, just as good as 35mm, and they wanted us to hire them. But if we didn’t want to hire their cameras, then 35mm film would cost us $100,000.
To make the filming even more fun, Lindsay didn’t get along with George. Lindsay saw in George every film producer who’d ever messed him around in his life.
Lindsay Anderson : I think that George is a fairly intelligent fellow in relation to the manipulation of music and himself. But that’s as far as it goes.
(Source : not known)