I was just going to ask you this exact question via email.... i've read that capturing a concert on film is really hard because a large film reel only has about 10 minutes worth of footage, which means they'd have to really replace the film very fast. So i'd guess they have to have a number of cameras ready to pickup while other cameras are changing reels. So this would be a lot of camera reels for each camera to saved. I guess I was thinking they would have one final film reel like they do when they record on video cameras where the director is calling out shots. Well the director can't even see every shot like he would if he were recording on video with a video switcher. And also, they wouldn't know what they captured until post production.
Also, I emailed a director of photography that filmed Janet's You video. It was live concert video recorded during an actual show and I had hope they would release this show one day and possibly on blu-ray. Well her is what he said..
You've done well with your research so far. Janet's manager, at the time and perhaps even still, Roger Davies, had a routine where we would shoot a single music video while his artists were on tour, and they would then also use that piece to sell the full show idea to HBO. I shot those for both Janet and Cher with David Mallot.
We always shot 35mm film in those days, and we would shoot the song we were concentrating on performed twice during one live show, as well as a few passes for close ups on the afternoon prior to the live gig. We would also roll on any interesting visual highlights during other parts of the show, but unfortunately, we would not shoot the entire concert.
This makes me believe what you're say about them not filming the entire show. I hope they did and you're wrong.
