UCSC alum’s detective work revives classic Talking Heads concert film 

The great 1984 Talking Heads concert documentary “Stop Making Sense,” directed by Jonathan Demme, was re-released last year in theaters to wide acclaim. But the story of how that re-release came about is not well-known. 

On the surface, it seems like an obvious move to mark the 40th anniversary of one of the finest rock concert films ever made with a new release. But, in this case, that wasn’t an easy task. It required, in fact, a lot of detective work on the part of film archivist James Mockoski, who is both a native Santa Cruzan and a UC Santa Cruz alum. 

For more than 20 years, Mockoski has worked as an archivist with Francis Ford Coppola’s company American Zoetrope, which has produced not only Francis Coppola’s films like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but those of his daughter Sofia as well. On Saturday, Mockoski will visit his hometown and his alma mater where he will talk about his critical role in restoring “Stop Making Sense” in a Q&A session, interviewed by me, prior to a screening of the film at the Quarry Amphitheater. 

The restoration of the film has created a new interest in one of the most popular bands of the 1980s post-punk era. Front man David Byrne has gone on to huge fame and influence, not only in the recording industry, but on the Broadway stage and the book bestseller lists. But the band has not performed together since the year “Stop Making Sense” was released. 

The restoration – which was released last fall and enjoyed a run at the Del Mar in Santa Cruz – thawed that ice a bit when the four Talking Heads all appeared together at the same time on “The Tonight Show.” The new visibility has resulted, said Mockoski, in new generations embracing the band’s artistry.

“What’s always rewarding for any film you work on is finding a new audience,” he said. “You know, it’s one thing to please the [older] fans, but you want to find new fans and a new audience so your film can continue on. And ‘Stop Making Sense’ just found a great groove where new artists are now covering a lot of the songs, and we were showing it to a young crowd who loves the music. And it just kept rolling along and still here we are, almost a year later, and it’s still getting programming.”

The screening on campus has already been a long time in coming. The Quarry event was originally set to happen in May, along with an appearance by Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison. Widespread student protests over Israeli actions in Gaza made the show untenable, and it was rescheduled for July. Harrison was not able to make the new date, but he will appear at the Quarry Aug. 16 with guitarist Adrian Legg in a concert re-creating the classic Talking Heads album “Remain in Light.”

Striking gold

James Mockoski has restored films a lot older than “Stop Making Sense,” (including a 100-year-old silent film called “Mothers of Men,” shot in and around Santa Cruz). If the original photo negative of the film is in good shape, it’s no big deal. But, if you can’t find that original, well …

Mockoski was originally brought in on the project when the film company A24 called him on behalf of the band, which owned the film’s rights, for a possible restoration and re-release of the Demme documentary. “Stop Making Sense” was shot live at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and features unforgettable live footage of such Talking Heads classics as “Psycho Killer,” “Life During Wartime” and “Once in a Lifetime.” Mockoski, a Talking Heads fan, was thrilled to be part of the effort. 

When he received the inventory that he would need for a restoration, the negatives – the original film emulsions from the director’s cameras – were missing. 

“We only had four or five months to try and restore the film and bring it to IMAX,” he said, in reference to the high-resolution system of film projection. “And it turned out, they actually had no material to work from. So, now everybody’s scrambling to try and figure out where in the process [the negatives] went missing.”

The studio that had originally released the film in 1984 had gone bankrupt. So Mockoski had to find out where that company’s assets went, or what photographic labs it had worked with. In 1999, there was a 15th anniversary print of “Stop Making Sense” that was released, and Mockoski figured whoever released it had the negatives. But, nope.

“They were working off an element that Jonathan Demme had at the University of Michigan,” he said, “which was a copy of a copy, and they made prints from that.”

Mockoski then called every studio, every lab, every vault he could think of looking for that original negative from Demme’s camera. After coming up empty, he was resigned to having to use that slightly degraded copy of an original, and he started his restoration work. But, in a Hail Mary move, he then called the last name on his list, an old contact at MGM, a company that has no connection to the film.

“They deal with thousands of these kinds of requests, a lot of crazy people looking for things. And they said, ‘Well, OK, we know you. We’ll look into it.’”

Ten minutes later, he received a text from MGM. In it was a photo of the original negative of “Stop Making Sense” sitting on a shelf in Burbank. The text said, “It’s just been sitting here for 30 years. It’s never been checked out.”

What they found was not only the negative of the edited film, but a lot of unused footage as well. What’s more, the negative was nearly pristine. 

What about the music?

But that was only the visuals. The sound was another story. The original audio recordings of the concert had gone through a similar odyssey of misplacement and neglect. Todd-AO, a legendary post-production company, had the sound recordings in its vault, but that company went through bankruptcy proceedings in 2014 and closed some of its facilities.

It was poised to trash everything from its vaults until someone – Mockoski doesn’t exactly know who – stepped up, rented a semi-truck and claimed all the material. When Mockoski finally found the sound recordings, they, too, were in great shape for Jerry Harrison to do his remix of the sound.

“You know, we were so lucky,” said Mockoski. “This story’s been repeated over and over: vaults close, storage facilities close. We know when there’s a lot of material lost forever, and it could have very well been like this, someone bought a studio or a warehouse and just junked everything. Luckily, that didn’t happen in our case.”

“Stop Making Sense,” featuring the music of Talking Heads, will be screened Saturday, July 13, at the Quarry Amphitheater on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. Showtime is 7 p.m. Tickets are $8-$15.