has anyone seen this 'Made in Sheffield' dvd from 2001 ?

being born in liverpool and living in manchester for 12 years makes it virtually verboten to *buy* this thing (like "PAH! a dvd about poxy old sheffield!") but the human league and abc stuff looks ace.

no offence intended ilm sheffo types obviously!

This is a good example of watching something and knowing that what hit the editing room floor was way more interesting that what actually made the final cut.

to sum it up:

Sheffield was boring--->we were arty kids who were bored--->we used synths instead of guitars--->Artery was dope, like a second string Joy Division--->the postpunk scene crested--->Human League broke up--->then ABC came out and got huge, also Heaven 17 to a lesser extent--->some of us made it, some of us didn't--->now we are all old and fat...

The Chris Watson bonus out-takes were really the only thing that was good about this dvd. He talks about Western Works, leaving the Cabs in 82 and how he fanatically collected tape recorders as a kid. Neat Guy.

The DVD gives this really fuzzy outline of events and doesn't give you any real info on any of it. It is like watching a 90 minute doc on WWII. It amounts to telling the same story about any rock scene ever, see diagram above. I wanted details, and I saw very few.

The stock footage was cool tho...

This isn't such a big deal. The problem is that they were not being asked the right question in the interviews or if they were, their answers were edited out.

Oakey, I see those synths back there, talk about em!

It did feature the guy from 2.3 which was pretty cool.

Precisely. (I meant in the sense of James N. thinking, "Okay, if I'm going to tell the Factory story properly...)

Lack of Comsats is a very good point!

I just realized that the knife I use exclusively in my kitchen to cut food was engraved as being made in Sheffield.

Is this the coolest thing in the world? Yes. Because I'm an anglophile and it gives me an excuse to pull out Cabaret Voltaire.

I'm serious. It says Sheffield England. No lie.

http://sheffield-cutlery.com/

Sheffield used to make all the knives and forks and spoons in the world (slight exaggeration)

how to operate with a blown mind.jpg

Hahaha

The best thing about this documentary was getting a chance to read another of Bimble's nuggets above. Made in Sheffield is freakishly bad, an egregious example of poor attempts at ventilating talking heads footage. In the absence of compelling visuals, the director needs to compensate with a fresh or deeper take on the subject which just doesn't happen here. As someone pointed out, it's just too short to properly cover all of the bands mentioned.

I can't think of any documentary that's aimed at those who already know everything about the subject... what would be the point?

Such people don't exist. But it would be nice to have a documentary for, shall we say, Advanced Placement students. What about those synths behind Oakey? How about more on the particular places where all this cultural activity took place? (Oakey is entertaining, though, mainly because he refuses to downshift his pomposity. And he still look great.)