New Shannon Hoon Documentary Could Feature New Guns N’ Roses Footage!

At this year’s Tribecca Film Festival it appears that a new Shannon Hoon documentary titled All I Can Say will be premiering. According to VOA News the entire documentary features personal footage Hoon shot starting from 1990 until 1995 when he passed away of an overdose at the age of 28. In 1990 he began shooting tapes of himself and charting Blind Melon’s rise to fame. About six years ago, Hoon’s daughter Nico brought a box of her father’s tapes to Danny Clinch wwho is a filmaker who shot the band in the past. There is a trailer from a few years ago on Youtube. I am not sure how much of the footage in the trailer made it into the final movie.

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“I knew Shannon often had a video camera with him,” says Clinch. “We realized that he basically filmed everything. It was overwhelming. We had a rough cut and all of a sudden [Hoon’s longtime girlfriend] Lisa would call us and say, ‘Hey, I found two more tapes.”‘

His tapes begin in 1990 while a not-yet-famous Hoon watched tractor competitions in Lafayette, Indiana, and run right up to the day of his death. Hoon obsessively chronicled himself while Blind Melon went from an upstart band to a rock sensation thanks largely to their hit video for “No Rain.”

Often speaking directly into the camera, Hoon documents everything from hanging out with Axl Rose to the band arguing over a Rolling Stone cover He filmed his daughter being born. He filmed many of his interviews with journalists. It amounted to 250 hours of footage. The filmmakers — Clinch, Taryn Gould and Colleen Hennessy — opted to credit Hoon as co-director.

“The idea that he was documenting himself for the world to see is really interesting,” says Clinch. “Did he feel like his candle was burning really bright and it might fade out? I don’t know.”

Director Asif Kapadia extensively used personal film archives for his Amy Winehouse documentary “Amy.” But “All I Can Say” is almost entirely from Hoon’s point of view. Holding so much of Hoon’s life in his hands, Clinch grants, has been a heavy responsibility.

“It’s been a lot on my shoulders to be given the gift of these tapes,” says Clinch, exhaling.