"The film's about the formation of this group. It's about musicians from different areas forming a common language. A lot of the film is rehearsal footage in which we explain how arrangements are put together and how certain decisions are made; plus concert footage taken from the Mogador. So it's not just a concert movie. Hopefully it will explain how music is made. Most rock films are made about bands at the peak of their career or when they are finished - like 'The Last Waltz' or 'Let It Be'. I can't think of a film that's about a band starting off. It's being shot as a 35mm feature by Michael Apted - the director of 'Gorky Park', 'Coalminer's Daughter', 'Stardust', - and to me some of his best works were his documentaries for Granada. He did a series called '28 Up' which took children at the age of seven and interviewed them at seven year periods."
Record Mirror, 6/85

On including the footage of son Jake being born...
"At first, I resisted filming it, then I realized there's a tenuous link between the band being born and the baby, so it fit."
The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/85

On including footage of his son, Jake, being born in Bring On The Night...
"Three months later I saw a rough cut in Hollywood. Sitting around watching it were these hardened corporate people who'd put up the money. When this scene came on they all started sniffling and crying. I thought, if this is having this effect on these industry people there's clearly something here that's worthwhile. We got a lot of flak for it but at the same time it's what people talk about."
Q, 12/87

"Bring On The Night is about the life of a band in one week. I'm going to be very involved in the editing process of the film. I won't be just saying my lines. It's being shot as a feature movie, in environments that are meant to look like film sets. So it's a real movie, but there's no script. The thing that's interesting about the movie is that most rock films are about bands after they make it big or when they finish. This is about a band at the beginning. It's quite exciting, fresh."
Record, 1985

"It's an honest look at the beginning of a group and in that sense it's unique. I've never seen a film like it. Most bands don't have the funds to film the beginning, even though that's the most exciting part."
The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/85

"The way we related to each other seemed right, and then one morning I had a whim. Wouldn't it be a great idea to do a film about starting a new band. But it became a reality very quickly. Before I could tell everyone it was just a joke, there were 120 people around us and we were spending all this money - somebody else's money. And I felt responsible, which is why I look so worried in the first part of the film."
The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/85

The 1985 documentary 'Bring On The Night' covers the formative stages of the band assembled by Sting that plays the jazz infused pop of his first solo album 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles'. Director Michael Apted - who has won acclaim for documentaries such as his ongoing series tracking the lives of a varied group of Britons at seven year intervals (most recently 1991's '35Up') and 'Moving The Mountain' in 1995, a film produced by Trudie Styler, as well as such feature films as 'Coalminer's Daughter' (1980), 'Gorillas In The Mist' (1988) - amassed 350,000 feet of film in his nine day shoot following Sting and his Blue Turtles from their rehearsal at a gorgeous French chateau to their opening performance at Paris's intimate Theatre Mogador. In addition to capturing the anxieties surrounding Sting's first post-Police endeavour, 'Bring On The Night' serves as a showcase for the brilliant young American jazz musicians that comprised the Blue Turtles band. Keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and saxophonist Branford Marsalis (who reportedly caused a familial rift by bolting brother Wynford's classic jazz quintet to join Sting's incursion into jazz-based pop) demonstrate their sublime musicianship throughout the film. Daryl Jones' bass provides the band's indispensable rhythmic foundation (Jones has since evolved from a 'Blue Turtle' to a Voodoo Lounge lizard as the bassist for the Rolling Stones), Omar Hakim's drumming is simply incendiary, particularly (and fittingly) on his bravura solo which brings the Mogador version of 'I Burn For You' to a scorching crescendo. Whilst Marsalis's effervescent wit steals as many scenes as his ascendant sax, ultimately this is Sting's table as one white haired sage put it, and it is the blond leading man who caps the film's blend of 'Blue Turtle' compositions and Police standards with a classy voice and guitar solo encore rendition of 'Message' In A Bottle. Indeed, only the forces of nature can upstage Sting in 'Bring On The Night' when Trudie goes into labour on the night of the second Mogador performance Apted's cameras are, sure enough, right there to record the debut appearance of Jake Sumner, Sting and Trudie's second child for the silver screen.