challenges, with Pennebaker having to conceal additional microphones onstage and in the mixing board, and integrate the sound of the audience, recorded with a stereo pair of microphones, with the audio from the concert stage. Despite these techniques, Pennebaker has acknowledged that the resulting film was "very sloppy". According to film critic Phil Hall, it remained in post-production for years "due to Pennebaker's inability to achieve an adequate soundtrack mix". Bowie, having abandoned the Ziggy Stardust character and moved on, was less than responsive to the filmmakers' requests for his post-production input, later saying that Ziggy Stardust "was something that I couldn't look at for years...I was so fed up with [Ziggy]." By the early 1980s, Bowie had overcome his reluctance enough to consider the film a "funny film" due to his Ziggy-era style of dress, and to work with Tony Visconti on remixing the soundtrack, saying "I don't know what I was on when I did it the first time". Jeff Beck accepted an invitation to appear with the band, without knowing the show would be filmed. He played guitar on three songs, two of them forming a medley. Beck appeared in the version of the film shown on ABC-TV in 1974, but was removed from the final cut of the film at his own request, with the three songs on which he played being cut from the film. Sources have variously said that Beck was not happy with his performance and/or his clothes, and that he was concerned about possible harm to his image from appearing in a glam rock film. Pennebaker had experimental filmmaker Robert Breer rotoscope Bowie for possible inclusion into the film. The rotoscoping was completed, but not used in the film. Release After completing the film, the filmmakers arranged some screenings of a 16 mm version, mostly in American college towns, but did not release the film to theatres. In an effort to recoup some of the sizable production costs, the film was leased to ABC-TV, which broadcast a shortened 60-minute version of the film to U.S. audiences on 25 October 1974, as an episode of the network's regular series In Concert. Pennebaker has said that he had difficulty finding a distributor for the Ziggy Stardust film, which was necessary because RCA had commissioned the film as a short product test with no plans to distribute it, and Pennebaker at that time lacked the