How 'A Saucerful of Secrets' in Live at Pompeii was split across two reels and captured by multiple cameras

The most interesting thing about the Live at Pompeii performance of “A Saucerful of Secrets” is that its chaotic, improv-heavy ending literally outlasted a single reel of film. The song’s coda—a building storm of drums, feedback, and screaming organ—clocks in at over seven minutes, and the entire track runs roughly twelve. The film crew only had ten-minute magazines for their 35mm cameras, so they had to cut mid-performance, reload, and seamlessly continue shooting with a second reel.

To capture that improvised ending from every angle, director Adrian Maben stationed multiple cameras around the amphitheater—including one on a rotating platform and another on a crane. As the band let the noise swell, the editors later stitched together the two reels using subtle crossfades so the audience never notices the splice. Meanwhile, the quadraphonic sound system recorded the performance onto four separate tracks, preserving the spatial chaos of echoes bouncing off the ancient stone walls. The final film hides the break so well that most viewers assume it was one continuous take.