‘Lost’ Documentary

The name Pink Floyd didn’t mean anything to Howard Lamden before August 1980. At the time, he was a recent transplant from Baltimore working in Los Angeles as a television editor on George Schlatter’s ‘Real People,’ a comedy show featuring unusual slice-of-life stories. ‘I’d never heard a Pink Floyd song in my life,’ says Lamden, who received a phone call that fall from a cameraman he’d worked with in New York, asking him to help create and edit a documentary from footage of the band’s ‘The Wall’ show in London. On November 30, 1979, Pink Floyd had released its legendary album of the same name, which included the hit song ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ (‘We don’t need no education/ We don’t need no thought control…All in all it’s just another brick in the wall’). Filmed in and around Earls Court arena, the footage included the two-hour concert as well as the unloading of equipment and mounting of the elaborate production, performed with visual aids projected on huge screens, giant inflatable characters and gigantic foam bricks. This show was not only a groundbreaking example of a modern multi-media experience but also the last time the band’s original members played together. It was the final production of the ‘The Wall,’ which Pink Floyd performed 30 times on stages in Los Angeles, New York, Dortmund (Germany) and London. Lamden started work on the documentary in January 1981 and it took him about six months to complete, working part-time. When he was done, he sent the documentary, shot on 3/4-inch videotape, to Pink Floyd. ‘At the time, these guys had so much money that they could’ve done anything,’ says Lamden, who names The Band as one of his favorite rock groups. Lamden wasn’t sure whether some of the documentary footage was intended to be used as part of a larger project, such as the movie ‘The Wall’ (originally released in 1982), but when he didn’t hear anything, he filed it in his archives, to use for his own reel and to get other jobs. ‘This documentary was one of the best things I ever did,’ he says, referring to its linear progression of the ‘load-in,’ which begins with trucks of equipment rolling into the arena and the crew unloading giant aluminum stage pieces. ‘I wanted to build an organic story, to tell it as it was.’ The 25-minute film documents the stage construction and engineering of the concert through behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the engineer, architect, sound and monitor mixers, as well as other crew members, roadies and fans. ‘It’s miles ahead of anything else that’s ever been done in rock-n’-roll,’ a young Roger Waters (the frontman and songwriter of Pink Floyd) says about the production at the start of the documentary. Waters is the only band member who’s interviewed in the documentary, though others are pictured in sound checks and rehearsals for the show. Images of the 35-foot-tall balloon-like figures with huge lights for eyes, and the collapsible foam brick wall made to withstand 20-30 mph winds, are fascinating to see. Especially well-edited are the sequences of the crew hard at work, with the piano being sound checked; these segments add artistic color and texture to the film. Around the 20th anniversary of ‘The Wall’ in 1999, Lamden received a phone call from James Guthrie, sound engineer for ‘The Wall’ shows, who wondered if Lamden still had a copy of the documentary. ‘There was so much infighting [among band members] that source material was lost,’ Lamden says. ‘I never lost the documentary. They lost it. I had my copy, a pristine copy.’ Lamden also owned the copyright, and seriously began to consider releasing the documentary around the time he had to start paying college tuition for his daughter, Lily. A PaliHi graduate (’03), Lily is now a sophomore at Colorado Sate University. When Lamden read an article in a UK publication that discussed the ‘lost’ Pink Floyd documentary and credited the wrong people for directing and editing it, he realized that ‘this was an important piece of work, and a lot of people had heard rumors about it.’ To prepare it for release, Lamden changed the title from ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ to ‘The Lost Documentary’ and took out the 12-minute version of ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ which had accompanied the original documentary. The two-hour concert also had to be omitted for copyright reasons. He copyrighted his work with the Library of Congress in December 2003, alerted Roger Waters to his intentions for release, found investors, built a Web site and cut a trailer. ‘I went through all the proper channels,’ he says. ‘I wanted to make money but I wasn’t going to do it and not feel good about it.’ In order to maintain control over the documentary, Lamden decided to self-distribute the DVD via a Web site in September 2004. ‘I had thought the first thousand would sell in hours,’ he says. To date, the first 1,000 pressings are almost gone. Negotiations are currently under way between Lamden and Waters to release the full concert with the documentary on DVD. Lamden’s experience in the music business includes producing and editing Bruce Springsteen’s The River concert in Tempe, Arizona (1981); directing and editing a Jackson Browne documentary called ‘Downtown,’ shot in downtown Los Angeles (1982); and editing the Doobie Brothers’ ‘Live at the Buddakan’ (1981/1982). ‘I really love being an editor,’ says Lamden, though he admits that he always preferred working in television for people like George Schlatter (well-known for the variety series ‘Laugh-In’) over working in music. ‘I learned everything about cutting comedy from [Schlatter]. He just made you feel great.’ Lamden moved to California in 1979, after working as a television editor on 20/20 and People Television in New York. He has lived in the Palisades since 1982 and currently works at Weller Grossman Productions in North Hollywood. Lamden’s 17-year-old son, Peter, attends Temescal Canyon Continuation School. To view the trailer for ‘The Lost Documentary’ or purchase the DVD for $29.95, visit www.thelostdoc.com.