Peter Jackson has directed his first actual music video, for the Beatles’ about to be released final single, “Now and Then.”
The song comes out Thursday morning. The video arrives Friday morning.
But Jackson says Paul and Ringo didn’t film anything when they worked on the song last year. This seems very weird since both of them have chronicled everything they’ve done since the 60s. But hey–
Jackson says: “I told Apple how the lack of suitable footage worried me. We’d need to use a lot of rare and unseen film, but there’s very little … Nothing at all seemed to exist showing Paul, George and Ringo working on Now And Then in 1995 … There’s not much footage of John in the mid-seventies when he wrote the demo … I grizzled about the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s … And they didn’t even shoot any footage showing Paul and Ringo working on the song last year.“
So how did Jackson do it?
He says: “I really had no idea how anyone could make a Now And Then music video if they didn’t have decent footage to work with, and this was far from being a lame excuse. My fear and insecurity now had solid reasons why they should prevail and allow me to say no without looking too much like a chicken.“
He continues “Paul and Ringo shot footage of themselves performing and sent that to me. Apple unearthed over 14 hours of long forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions, including several hours of Paul, George and Ringo working on Now And Then, and gave all that to me. Sean and Olivia found some great unseen home movie footage and sent that. To cap things off, a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before, was kindly supplied by Pete Best.“
Jackson further says that after he constructed a beginning and middle, Dhani Harrison turned up in New Zealand. “I discussed the ending with him, and described one vague idea I’d been toying with. His eyes immediately filled with tears – so that is the way we went.“
To be continued on Thursday at 10am Eastern.
Here’s John’s demo:
