The Velvet Forum

Piero Heliczer & The Dead Language Press - A Bibliography, a two volume set.

http://store.boo-hooray.com/product/pie ... bliography

Only pre-orders include a bonus DVD, Piero Heliczer/Walter Cronkite's The Making Of An Underground Film, featuring the earliest known footage of the Velvet Underground in its entirety. The DVD comes enclosed in letterpress covers.

Cool! Wonder if the DVD has the original soundtrack?

Thanks Taxine!

I did pre-order...will see

Thanks Taxine!
I love Boo-Hooray! Just got their amazing Black Mask/Up Against The Wall Motherfucker book too.

Got this reply from Boo-Hooray:

Hello Mark,

The DVD contains more footage of the NY underground scene than the 30 seconds of VU currently on Youtube - if we are thinking of the same video.

The soundtrack to the VU sequence, to anyone's knowledge, does not exist.

Best,

Michael

Oh well

Further correspondence:

I wrote:Many thanks for the reply Michael. Yes we're thinking of the same video - I actually put that up on Youtube myself, having pulled the section from a '90s VU documentary.

So I'm curious - is the VU part just silent, or do you mean the music is obscured by a voiceover or something?

then they wrote:Nice! That footage reportedly originated from a news segment, though it was later used in documentaries. So the original footage, as you'll see, has voiceover and is part of a bigger overview on "the scene." As far as we know, if the documentary was recording sound it was lost or discarded.

The news source got the footage from Piero Heliczer's film "Venus In Furs," which is now lost.

then I wrote:Thanks - I didn't realise the CBS report included Piero's own footage from the film itself. I assumed their own crew was filming on-set while Venus in Furs was being made.

As for the soundtrack, you'll probably know the old listing for the Venus in Furs film which states "Sound engineer: CBS-TV News" (http://tomraworth.com/pierosite/ph.html). I'd always understood that to mean that Piero used a tape from CBS's film of the Velvets playing.

Such a shame that Piero's own archive seems to be largely lost / non-existent!

then they wrote:I should clarify. I do not know who shot the footage of Venus In Furs, since Piero is in the film itself, it easily could be the news crew filming. However, from what I've been told, the crew would still be filming a movie shoot going on, not necessarily just the Velvets playing.

What I was trying to communicate is that, as you already know, this seems to be the only footage existent of Venus In Furs.

The rest is a mystery!

Any idea how long this version is?

Taxine. Thanks for the heads up. I got my order in.

Mark. Heliczer preferred shooting on standard 8mm. Standard 8mm sound cameras were rare, so sound tracks would have been added later , if at all. This might be interesting to you. From 'The Exploding Eye' by Wheeler Winston Dixon:

'....All of these films [a selection of Heliczer's key films are listed in the previous paragraph] were shot silent with separate tape soundtracks [some featuring The Velvet Underground] created by Heliczer to accompany the images in his cheerfully anarchic and yet 'personal lyrical' works.'

With regards, who shot the footage, it was not unknown for Heliczer to have other people shoot his films for him. For example, the British filmmaker Jeff Keen shot Heliczer's 1964 film, The Autumn Feast.

iaredatsun wrote:Taxine. Thanks for the heads up. I got my order in.

Mark. Heliczer preferred shooting on standard 8mm. Standard 8mm sound cameras were rare, so sound tracks would have been added later , if at all. This might be interesting to you. From 'The Exploding Eye' by Wheeler Winston Dixon:

'....All of these films [a selection of Heliczer's key films are listed in the previous paragraph] were shot silent with separate tape soundtracks [some featuring The Velvet Underground] created by Heliczer to accompany the images in his cheerfully anarchic and yet 'personal lyrical' works.'

With regards, who shot the footage, it was not unknown for Heliczer to have other people shoot his films for him. For example, the British filmmaker Jeff Keen shot Heliczer's 1964 film, The Autumn Feast.

According with some reply above,the footage seems a bit longer that VU.Venus film spoted on youtube,what's also is great,though
just expeculation.

Just got on my mail,Boo Hoorey's excellent stuff,you're welcome.

Duration of the DVD is 6 minutes apparently - not all VU, of course.