'LOOK AT ME' from JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND - THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION - SUPER DELUXE BOX SET. Preorder now → https://bit.ly/JLPOB2021.
On 9th June 1968, at John’s home ‘Kenwood’ in Weybridge, Surrey, John & Yoko began a collaborative period of creative film-making that would end up lasting four years, beginning with two films called ‘Film No. 5’ (‘Smile’) (conceived by Yoko) and ‘Two Virgins’ (conceived by John & Yoko) that would premiere at the Chicago Film Festival later that year. The filming involved specialist high-speed 16mm cameras (in those days mainly used for filming scientific experiments) operated by William Wareing and his team.
For ‘Film No. 5’ (‘Smile’), the magic of John smiling is captured in ultra slow motion (with the film running through the camera at ultra high-speed), and for ‘Two Virgins’, they filmed with a different high-speed camera and used a trick that John had employed when filming with his Standard 8 cameras of rewinding all the film and running it through the camera a second time, to double expose the negative. They filmed John’s face, rewound the film and then filmed Yoko’s face, creating in-camera superimpositions of their faces merging.
Excerpts from these two films can be seen in the music video ‘Number 9 Dream’. https://youtu.be/7zZsKOvXiFo
Between takes, Wareing also filmed three rolls of ‘home movie’ Standard 8 film – one in black and white, the other two in colour.
We see John & Yoko in the sun room, where John sat playing a nylon stringed guitar, and where, among other things, you can see John’s drum skin from the Sgt Pepper album cover (designed by Joe Ephgrave) and his psychedelic upright piano (painted by Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma from Dutch design collective, The Fool) and, with most success, around the swimming pool, where Yoko dances and John plays a steel string acoustic guitar.
We also see John & Yoko in the kitchen, where John pets their black cat, Salt (the white one was called Pepper) and Yoko prepares some food.
These Standard 8 film reels are presented here, side-by-side, for the first time, accompanied by John’s song ‘Look At Me‘ from the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – The Ultimate Collection album.
LOOK AT ME
Look at me
Who am I supposed to be?
Who am I supposed to be?
Look at me
What am I supposed to be?
What am I supposed to be?
Look at me
Oh, my love
Oh, my love
Here I am
What am I supposed to do?
What am I supposed to do?
Here I am
What can I do for you?
What can I do for you?
Here I am
Oh, my love
Oh, my love
Look at me
Oh, please look at me, my love
Here I am
Oh, my love
Who am I?
Nobody knows but me
Nobody knows but me
Who am I?
Nobody else can see
Just you and me
Who are we?
Oh, my love
Oh, my love
Written by John Lennon © Lenono Music
John Lennon: guitar and vocals
Produced by John & Yoko and Phil Spector
Recorded at EMI Studio 2, 3 Abbey Road, London, 18 October 1970.
More about this story at the official John Lennon website → http://bit.ly/JL-LAM.
JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND - THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION → https://bit.ly/JLPOBbox
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