VH1 info from Rob Godwin

[buckeye <buckeye@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks

There has been lots of talk and speculation about the VH1 LZ Legends
program.  Here is some information from Robert Godwin, who helped with
putting together the program (note his name twice in the credits!).
- -Bruce
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Hi Bruce,

Just thought I might contribute to the debate about the VH1 special. The 
show was originally VH1's idea. The station approached the band with the 
idea of doing a show to add to their ongoing Legends series. The band 
approved the idea and provided the Seattle, Knebworth (the 4th), RAH,
Danish TV, Paris and Sydney footage. 

>From that point on the show was gradually constructed over a four month
period.  I think to the credit of the producer he did not want to lean 
heavily on the SRTS for footage and so an aggressive campaign was launched
to unearth unseen footage. I believe that this was done with  remarkable
success. Amongst the artifacts were Dallas 69, Kezar 73, Nassau 75, and LA 71 as
well as the interview footage from OGWT from 1976 and the NY 70 press 
conference. All of these clips had to be  secured and royalties and 
releases negotiated for their use. Quite a few rare pictures were used 
including  such things as Page's art school.  Given the limitations of 
having to tell Led Zeppelin's history in 44 minutes I believe it covered
two basic  goals. (1) To inform the general public who might be flipping
channels. (2) Give the hardened Zep fan  something new to look at while
not detracting from (1).

To answer some specifics:-

The original script did call the Starship a 707 and  no one knows how it
ended up as a 727! 

Plant and Jones saw the show before it was aired and made several minor
changes. 

The audio of Bonzo's drumming was in the original but shelved due to a
major alteration in the show's last segment.

The acoustic footage was from LA 71.

The show was not made to promote CD sales, as I pointed out earlier this was
VH1's idea, not the band's.

The interview with Jones was conducted specifically for the show but the
Page footage was archive. 

Tyler was chosen to narrate because he seemed appropriate and was willing 
however this was supposed to  be a documentary (Not a concert video) and
as such had a story to tell in the allotted time and thus Tyler was 
obliged to read through many tantalising clips. (I should also point out 
that wherever possible the master tapes were used, such as Paris, Sydney 
etc with licensing deals struck with the various owners  around the
globe.) 

For those who thought the WLL video included better clips that's because
WLL was assembled by the  band and those clips were not on the table for
use by VH1 (neither was EC75).

VH1 assembled the thing and chose to use Dallas SB for the Nassau footage
because the audio sucked. Also VH1 did the sympte synching for the audio
on Dallas 69 and Page had nothing to do with exhuming the rare footage,
that was all undertaken by the producers.

The show was not approved by Plant and Jones until the 15th Nov and changes
were being made right up  to the night before. 

The reason it was barely advertised is because it was intended to be a sneak
preview (that may not have aired at all) and the full official airing is 
slated for early December as part of a VH1 Legends week.

Hopefully this may clear up some questions. All in all I think that given
44 minutes, the restrictions of a  conceptual format (i.e. part of a 
series) and basically little help from the band, I think it is a good 
first documentary on LZ and if nothing else it turned up footage from 
three shows which haven't seen the light  of day before. Given the well
known difficulties of luring the band into cooperating on a project of
this nature (and relinquishing footage) I think VH1 did remarkably well.

Best

Rob Godwin