FINALLY!!! AT LAST!!!
In time for its 10th anniversary, I was able to upload a remastered version of my Beatles documentary, "Cranberry Sauce: An Examination of The Paul Is Dead Hoax." You see, I created this film length retrospective and study of one of the quirkiest and morbid chapters in Fab Four history way back in 2010, which gained tens of thousands of views, only to have it taken done over rights issues. Ugh. But with some selective editing, it has returned!
About its original removal from YouTube: Let me be clear, I asserted then, in 2010, and now that my usage of music and video footage in the creation of my documentary falls under fair usage. Yes, too many people uploading full movies and music videos and such make a similar claim, despite their work being clearly in violation. However, I believe my work definitely falls within guidelines (and even more so now, with my remastered version).
Fair use allows a work to use select copyrighted materials for criticism, commentary, research, and educational purposes. All of which I feel my work meets in terms of requirements. Additionally, my work is transformative in most of the materials that is used in it. Still, to make certain my new version would not get taken down, I made several edits and replaced some audio, which seems to have worked in as much as being allowed on YouTube.
This is especially gratifying, as over the past decade, I had learned of a number of times where someone else took my video and uploaded it to their own channel. It seemed separate individuals were using the same version, which was a version that someone downloaded, split in two parts, and, for some reason, chose to alter my beginning credits to remove my name. Interestingly, the editor left my final credits intact, so I am unsure as to the purpose as those final credits also mention my name several times.
I am actually not against others sharing my video, even uploading it elsewhere on other sites. I created my work to be seen, after all. I just would like my video to be left unedited by others. I created the documentary with no intention of making a profit from it. It was never meant to be monetized, and was strictly a fan creation meant to be shared with other fans.
Okay, on the subject of the video itself: Do I personally believe the story of the hoax? Well, not in that I believe Paul McCartney truly passed away back in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, with the Beatles leaving clues on albums of their mate's untimely demise. Even so, I purposefully left the conclusion ambiguous in my video. I am simply a fan who is fascinated with this chapter of Beatles lore.
In fact, it was this fascination that actually led me to becomes a big Beatles fan. If the whole thing of "Paul Is Dead" was a put-on by the Beatles and the record company to sell more albums (which all have denied), it worked in my case.
I was more of a casual fan, in my younger days, enjoying the selection of songs typically played in rotation on radio stations of my youth. But, in buying and listening to the full albums in my quest to hear these gruesome "clues", which also gave me opportunity to hear many songs that were not typically played on the radio, I was won over and the band became my favorite rock/pop band of all.
Even when I first heard about the hoax as a teen, I thought it was bogus. However, I have an affection for bizarre and oddball things, and the tale captured my imagination. In 2003, I first attempted a look into the PID hoax for a Halloween episode of my public access TV program, "The Happy Show!"
I was not satisfied with that rougher look into the myth, and so in 2010 I revisited it in creating the documentary. By 2010, there began to be others who would post videos about the PID hoax on YouTube. Many of these took a decidedly more conspiracy slanted stance, trying to suggest Paul really did die in the 1960s, and the death is still being covered up. The people who really believe this can be pretty extreme. I chose to only focus on the origins of the hoax, and not get into the extended craziness that has evolved during the internet age on "real" conspiracies.
I would end up going in depth for this endeavor, researching the story more than ever before. I dug up decades old articles, interviews, sound bites, radio broadcasts, and anything I could that related to the hoax. I wrote up a script, and asked regular "Happy Show" contributor, Al Chantrey, to provide the narration. Al is gifted at coming up with character voices, but I asked him to use his normal voice for this, as being English as he is, I felt his accent would be a nice touch for a video about the Beatles.
I put a lot of time and effort into making the original version, and quite a bit still to make this 10th anniversary remastered version. I hope you will check it out, whether you are a Beatles fan, or not. It is an interesting look at a bizarre tale during the final days of the band.
Oh, and I slipped in a few little easter eggs of my own during the documentary in the spirit of fun. :-)
Enjoy, and feel free to share with others!
