Re: Bruce Brandon Lee Association UK / New Book?

I don't think it was a case of obsessing about getting approval from the Estate.
As for showing DVDs at the convention, I can sympathise somewhat. Though you have to bear in mind that you can only show film prints if they are available. Two films that we showed in the past on 35mm film were Enter the Dragon and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. These prints were commonly available. You have to realise that prints can be expensive to rent and are not always in the best condition. This was the case with Way of the Dragon. The Way of the Dragon print hadn't been shown for many years and even the projectionist at the cinema said that it probably wouldn't remain intact if he put it through the system.

Yes, the KFM convention showed the films on 35mm film but the prints were still in pretty good condition. The kung fu boom was still on and these were technically active prints. Now, these prints are redundant.
We showed rare footage from VHS and later DVD. You may criticise that this footage was widely available on the internet from bootleggers (which is where we obtained footage), but at that time, internet access was very limted. I would guess that 80% of convention attendees did not have internet access and therefore had no access to this footage. I remember that one year we showed Forever Hero, which was widely available to buy on the internet, yet roughly 90% of the attendees had not seen it and afterwards, several people asked me where they could buy it and I happily pointed them in the direction of the company I purchased it from.
If you weren't happy with things Carl, and you found it not to your liking, you should have spoken to Andrew Staton, who I'm sure would have gladly given you your money back. There's nothing much he can do if, years later, you hide behind a computer screen bitching about things.

On the Warrior's Journey day, I didn't find John Little self-important. I found him to be knowledgable, friendly, funny, down to earth and approachable. Every advertisement for that day, clearly stated what the day was about. Again, you should have spoken to Andrew regarding the matter, and you would have been given a full refund.

The fact of the matter is, the conventions that I helped out with between 2000 and 2005, only cost £10 per ticket. They would regularly run from 10am to 5pm in two cinemas; one showing Bruce Lee stuff and one showing Brandon Lee stuff, so altogether, with introductions and the annual auction, approximately 10-12 hours of footage would be shown.

Everyone who helped out at those conventions, gave their time for free. There would be approximately 8 people helping out at the events and they all gave their time for free.

No one else was running conventions, except the one that Steve Kerridge put on in London several years ago. The BBLA were the only people going out of their way to arrange events.

As for getting crap guests. I'd have to disagree with you on that one. The BBLA got people they could afford to get. Conventions were never arranged for the profit or commercial gain of staff members. The guests often took a huge slice of the money made and more often than not, the BBLA actually lost money at these events. Jim Kelly wanted £10,000 to just walk off the plane and that's not counting his air fare, accomodation, expenses, and appearance fees. Pat Johnson some would argue hardly met Bruce Lee, except for a brief role on Enter the Dragon. What's important to remember about Pat, is that he was also Steve McQueen's personal trainer and therefore met Bruce on quite a few occasions, plus he was also the fight choreographer for Showdown in Little Tokyo with Brandon. Now, I attended all of John Saxon's Q&A session at last years Seni show. Every session heard the same stories, as John poured out preprogrammed stories - almost the same stories that I heard when I interviewed him several years earlier. Pat Johnson, though not being as close to Bruce as some fans would like, was actually extremely refreshing and extremely down to earth.

As time has gone on, rare footage has been on the decline. The BBLA played a huge part in getting things released, and have in effect, shot ourselves in foot regarding rare footage that is shown at conventions. A company bought the Immortal Dragon documentary to release on DVD. So as not to confuse it with the well known documentary of the same name, the BBLA suggested a title change to The Unbeatable Bruce Lee. As everyone knows, the documentary looks like a poorly put together fan offering but the extra features on that DVD were worth the price of it alone; The Number One Son screentest, Green Hornet outtakes, etc. The price of that DVD was less than it would have cost to buy the footage individually (in poorer quality) from internet bootleggers.

Even when The Lost Interview DVD came out, it was Andrew Staton who was fundamentally responsible for getting the audio interviews on there too. I know some people are going to have a go at that DVD release saying that more footage should have been added but it was about what footage had been cleared to use. Though the people that will criticise the release of that DVD, will praise the extra-less and over-priced Japanese DVD of the same thing. Sometimes, I think people just need someone to have a go at.

The BBLA address by the way is www.bbla.co.uk though it is not up at present. We are currently in the process of moving it to new servers so it should be back online in a couple of weeks, once I get time to sort everything out.

Carl