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Unseen Beatles footage released

Sydney - Never-before-seen footage of The Beatles "mucking around" in a make-up studio ahead of a television performance, shot more than half a century ago, was released by Australia's national film and sound archive on Tuesday.

The 49-second black-and-white silent video clip was filmed with an 8mm camera belonging to Australian dancer and make-up artist Dawn Swane, who was working at Granada TV in Manchester, UK, at that time.

The previously unreleased footage, from 1 November 1965, shows the four members of the legendary band having fun in front of the camera as their make-up is applied.

"I was in the make-up room. And so we were having some champagne," Swane, now 83, said in a statement released by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

"And anyway, I don't know if it was John (Lennon) or if it was Ringo (Starr) but they took the camera off me and said, 'This is no way to use a camera', and they sort of jiggled it upside down and inside out a bit, and everybody was just mucking around.

"But that was great. I mean they were a nice group of people. They really were."

The clip was donated by Swane's daughter Melinda Doring.

(AFP PHOTO / NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA)

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