(Photo Credit: bbc.co.uk)

The 50-Year-Old Footage Resurfaced For Remastering

Footage of The Beatles that was believed to be lost for good has been recovered, thanks to a collector who donated his recordings. The footage shows The Beatles performing “Paperback Writer” more than 50 years ago.

“The material was believed to have been wiped from archives and deleted forever, until David Chandler, a music enthusiast, found a series of 8mm film reels,” Forbes reports. “He contacted the company Kaleidoscope, which specializes in finding “lost” video and TV shows, after seeing recent publicity on BBC television about another Beatles discovery. In April 2018 the BFI and Kaleidoscope launched a campaign to find the Top 100 Lost TV shows. Number 2 on that list was the weekly music show Top of the Pops (behind the science-fiction drama series Doctor Who). The company digitally remastered the footage and enhanced the sound to revitalize the on-stage performances. The material now shows a 92-second live performance The Beatles on Top of the Pops. Only 11 seconds was believed to remain beforehand.”

The footage now belongs to the BBC, which collects and stores rare footage of The Beatles and other beloved British musical acts.

“Every find is greeted with huge enthusiasm, such as the outtakes released of its seminal albums Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1967 and The Beatles (also known as The White Album) from 1968,” Forbes reports.

The newly-discovered Beatles video will be unveiled at a charity event in the U.K. this Saturday, June 1.