Can you source this video of Stew Albert and John Lennon? Yippie!

October 21, 2011 10:40 AM

Please help me track down the source of the footage of John Lennon and Stew Albert that appears at 0:42-0:44 in the MSNBC segment, What is John Lennon's lasting legacy?", which aired on The Daily Rundown on December 9, 2010.

Portions of the same segment were used on the Colbert Report on July 11, 2011, as well.

In the 3 seconds of video I'm interested in, there is a shot of John Lennon, Stew Albert, and another cameraman. I would very much like to find out the source of this material, and to find out if there is more footage or any still shots, and if the person who owns the rights would sell me a copy. For that matter, any information about where this came from, who shot it, or who the other cameraman is would be great.

My wife is Stew's daughter, and grew up hearing tales of time he spent with Lennon. Until this popped up on Colbert this summer, she had never seen it, in photo or video. I would love to give her a copy of the full source material for Hanukkah this year if I can make that happen.

I figure someone at MSNBC must know the source of the video, and must have cleared the rights before putting it on the air. I tried contacting them several months ago through one of the options on their contact us page (I think I tried "media inquiries"), but never heard back. I did not try Colbert because I assume they just got rights to the whole MSNBC segment under whatever licenses MSNBC already had.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated

posted by jewishbuddha to media & arts (9 answers total)

My first assumption is that it would be in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which is Albert's only IMDB credit. There were probably promo clips distributed around the time of its 2006 release that were readily available for B-roll.
posted by dhartung at 12:57 PM on October 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

But the doc. didn't shoot that footage--it's licensed from someplace else. I would have thought Yoko Ono provided that clip, as the documentary had full access to her archives.
You could try contacting David Leaf though his agency, ICM or John Scheinfeld thought his representation at Gersh and ask. If you call either agency, you'll get an assistant who can hear your story and pass on the request.
Neither MSNBC nor Colbert's staff would necessarily know the source as these shows are both considered news and they probably just pulled the clip from the DVD.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:12 PM on October 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I haven't seen The U.S. vs. John Lennon, but my wife and mother-in-law both have, and still said they had not seen the footage in question before. Stew was also interviewed for another Lennon doc around the same time, which they said did not include it either. Still, it could have been distributed as promo b-roll as you suggest, so that's an angle I'll look into. Thanks! Now, how do I contact the people who made that movie? ;-)

And that's clearly not the original source of the footage, which I'd like to find even if I can get a copy from the film maker.
posted by jewishbuddha at 2:14 PM on October 21, 2011

Should have previewed.

Ideefixe, that's all very helpful as well. Many thanks.
posted by jewishbuddha at 2:16 PM on October 21, 2011

I work at MSNBC, but man, if that just went up last week, I might be able to help. It's a year old almost...not so sure. I can ask one of the video guys but they may not be able to help this late.

This is weird, but you might see if another segment is run on Dec. 8 this year. Because then someone might have more info on where they got that footage.
posted by GaelFC at 2:23 PM on October 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I work at MSNBC, but man, if that just went up last week, I might be able to help. It's a year old almost...not so sure. I can ask one of the video guys but they may not be able to help this late.

That would be excellent! And I totally understand if it's been too long. And I'll keep an eye out for it to show up on something current.
posted by jewishbuddha at 2:26 PM on October 21, 2011

ABC news has Stew in Northern Ireland and Miami, but I'm not sure that I've ever seen footage of him and Lennon other than this doc., which is why I think it must be from either the Apple archives or Yoko's personal ones.

But Judy Gumbo says that the image shown is the only shot she has of them together. I know Paul Krassner, I can ask him if he knows.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:07 PM on October 21, 2011

Don't know the event, but it's from a BBC doc called Man of the Decade.

I'm guessing that the footage was shot outside court following the 1968 drug bust.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:25 PM on October 24, 2011

Thank you very much!
posted by jewishbuddha at 3:20 PM on October 24, 2011