Incredible Unseen Footage and The Shining Interviews with Stanley Kubrick & Vivian Kubrick

Do we have fans of Stanley Kubrick movies here, and especially 2001 : A Space Odyssey and The Shining? If yes, some incredible footage coming out of nowhere has surfaced on Youtube and it's a treasure for Kubrick fans as it was filmed in 1980 at Elstree Studios where The Shining was filmed, in England, as well as interviews of Stanley Kubrick and his daughter Vivian Kubrick who did the excellent making-of documentary of The Shining.

But there is more as in his interview - audio only because Kubrick was recorded on the phone as he was not available to come to Elstree Studios - Stanley answers to two questions that he voluntarily never, EVER answered, and which are the ones that fans desperately wanted an answer from him! 

The first one is about the meaning of the end of 2001 : A Space Odyssey, and especially this scene below.

And the other is about the last shot of The Shining in which we discover Jack Nicholson character on a picture displayed in the Overlook hotel, showing a party which happened 60 years before on July 4, 1921, this picture.

Now, a bit more about where this amazing footage - obviously a non-edited raw footage - is coming from thanks to the Youtube description of the video:

"Towards the end of post-production on The Shining Jun'ichi Yaoi visited Stanley Kubrick's offices at EMI Elstree Studios to investigate reports of paranormal activity on the set there were several accidents and a major fire during production which were prominently reported by the media at the time.

This raw footage was likely shot for an unreleased/unaired Japanese paranormal TV documentary - Jun'ichi Yaoi ( 矢追 純一 ) b.1935 is a director/producer, TV personality and writer well known in Japan for his explorations of the paranormal, he worked for Nippon Television Network in the '60s, '70s and '80s producing many shows for them on the topic. He is widely credited with popularising UFOs in Japan.

The unedited footage came from original production master VHS tapes in the personal collection of famed ufologist Wendelle C. Stevens, who was apparently involved in this production. (The footage was originally shot to Sony KCS20 U-matic Cartridges and then mastered to VHS)

The video opens with the journey from London to EMI Elstree Studios, including arrival at studio reception. Junichi Yaoi is given a tour of EMI Elstree Studios by Julian Senior (Vice President of Advertising & Publicity for Warner Brothers/ Europe), they discuss production on the Shining, Kubrick's innovative TV teaser spots. This is followed by a meeting with Vivian Kubrick who discusses her documentary, anecdotes of production on The Shining and her father, further tours of the post-production offices.

A tour is given by Vivian of "the Kubrick equipment room" including discussing and handling Stanley Kubricks Zeiss Planar f/0.7 converted NASA lens from Barry Lyndon, Shelley Duvall's costumes, props and equipment from previous films. This seems to be Kubrick's working archive, after this we also see Stanley Kubrick's personal office.

Jun'ichi Yaoi conducts a telephone interview with Stanley Kubrick - Kubrick is allegedly away from the office overseeing foreign language prints of the film (it has been said by those present that day that he did not want to appear on camera and was actually in another office at Elstree). This is followed by an in-depth interview with Vivian Kubrick.

We get final glimpses of exteriors at EMI Elstree, then the journey back to central London and final views of the ABC Cinema Shaftesbury Avenue (now the Odeon Covent Garden) with a Shining marquee."

It's important to remember that Junichi Yaoi was the producer of a Japanese paranormal show at that time, which explain the question he asked to Kubrick, including some odd ones like "Do you believe in UFO?".  But this 1h24min video is such gold for Kubrick fans that it doesn't matter. Watch it, you'll learn a lot and Vivian Kubrick is smart and absolutely lovely!




Here are the different "chapters" for those of you who would like to choose a sequence directly. Also note that the video starts and ends with a five minutes footage in the street of London to Elstree Studios, and back. You can jump this if you wish.

00:00 Intro / Drive from central London to EMI Elstree Studios (Borehamwood)
04:14 Arrival at EMI Elstree Studios
07:07 Meeting with Julian Senior (Warner Brothers)
12:16 Tour of studio sound stages with Julian Senior, details of production
18:30 Back to the production offices - details of scenes shot there
23:00 Meeting with Vivian Kubrick, discussing her Shining documentary
27:20 Vivian Kubrick shows Jun'ichi Yaoi "the Kubrick equipment room"
31:50 Stanley Kubrick's equipment the 'famous' Zeiss f/0.7 NASA lens.
34:00 Stanley Kubrick working archive
36:15 '2001: A Space Odyssey' related material (back projection slides) 
38:04 Stanley Kubrick's office
41:40 Vivian Kubrick interview at edit table
45:24 Telephone interview with Stanley Kubrick
55:45 Interview with Vivian Kubrick
1:15:26 EMI Elstree studios exteriors 
1:16:35 Outtro / drive back to London, central London and Soho
1:22:57 ABC Cinema Shaftesbury Avenue (The Shining posters & marquee)