The Police in Montserrat

From DocuWiki

1 General Information
2 Cover
3 Information
4 Screenshots
5 Technical Specs
6 Links

[edit] General Information

Arts Documentary hosted by Jools Holland, published by BBC in 1981 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

This BBC 47 minute documentary "Police in Montserrat" was shown on UK television back in the 1980's and it hasn't been broadcast outside of the UK. This version includes several clips that did not make one of the previous broadcasts. There is an extended intro, and additional footage of all three band members being interviewed. In mid 1981, young Jools Holland flew out to Montserrat with a small camera crew to film The Police at work recording their fourth album, Ghost In The Machine.

After the cold UK and rainy Netherland where the first three albums were recorded, the island of Montserrat and George Martin's homely Air Studio offered a welcoming, warm environment for the recording of what many fans still consider to be the band's best album. After Jools' introduction to the island we see Sting running up a hill to the studio, and are thrust straight into a series of fascinating interviews and videos.

Jools talks to each band member in turn, asking Andy to explain how he gets some of his effects and gets him to demonstrate his Roland guitar synthesiser. Andy plays licks from several songs including 'Message In A Bottle' to demonstrate and 'Bring On The Night' and Jools ask him about his influences before unceremoniously pulling out his guitar lead after Andy plays a little 'funk' for him with the comment "I think that's best left to James Brown...".

Joined by Jools on keyboards the pair then jam some blues tune and we get to see Andy play a little bottleneck guitar - quiet a rare sight. Sting is interviewed in the studio where he explains to Jools a little about the pressures of songwriting, the desire to always try and better your last hit, and tells how he wrote both 'Message In A Bottle' and 'Invisible Sun'. The explanation for Sting's almost boyish enthusiasm during this interview can now be revealed - he had just written a new song, 'Invisible Sun', and this clip was not in one of the previous broadcasts. These few minutes are definitely interesting, with Sting breaking the songs down and explaining in detail how they were constructed.

In further 'new' footage, Sting then introduces his customised stand-up Van Zalinge bass, 'Brian', before he and Jools start jamming away where they are joined by Andy Summers. Jools moves to Stewart Copeland and gets him to explain his drum set-up and demonstrate some of the effects he employs. Stewart describes how important the role of the drummer is at the start of recording and explains in layman's terms his fascination for reggae, demonstrating the key differences between the reggae beat and the traditional backbeat. Stewart's obvious enthusiasm is almost contagious, and at one point he neatly sums up the reggae beat as 'a paradigm for the cosmos'. As if this wasn't enough, intercut between all these clips are four full length videoclips shot in the studio for 'Spirits In The Material World', 'One World (Not Three)', 'Demolition Man' and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. Other special features include two live tracks from October 1978's appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" TV show , 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'Next To You'. This was The Police's big break on UK television and showcases early Police at their best.

[edit] Screenshots

[edit] Technical Specs

Video Codec: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate: 1944 kbps
Video Resolution: 704x536
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.313:1
Frames Per Second: 25.000
Audio Codec: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: english
RunTime Per Part: 53:47.600
Number Of Parts: 1
Part Size: 825 MB
Ripped by: DocFreak08