Timeline Albums, EPs & singles Songs Films Concerts Sessions People Interviews Articles

Saturday, October 13, 1984

Filming of “No More Lonely Nights (Dance remix)” promotional video

,

Last updated on May 4, 2020


Location

  • Location: The Hippodrome, London, UK

Timeline

Related articles

From Club Sandwich N°44, Spring 1987:

[…] As you would expect, the brief for the remix video was rather different. Director David G. Hillier, recently nominated for a BAFTA award for his work on the Max Headroom TV series, had edited MPL’s Buddy Holly short The Music Lives On for US TV. To illustrate the disco ‘Lonely Nights’, he was asked to intercut breakdancing with entertaining archive footage. Producer Nick Maingay takes up the story.

“Paul wanted movement in all the old footage. There are specialist companies which seek out film under the heading you want, so I went to them and had to watch hours of film to pick out the few seconds I wanted.”

The variety in the old clips is dazzling: disco, comic and old-time dancing; ’60’s twisters and tribal dancers; athletics, jitterbugging, Salvador Dali, a traffic policeman; a country hoedown; backwards film of a weightlifter dropping his dumb-bells. All this amid shots of Paul, cordless mike in hand, surrounded by hectic breakdancing. (The Cavern girls knew him and Ringo as the best dancers in the Beatles, but he’s taking it easy here!) Linda and two dancers join him at the mike.

Nick: “The video was shot at the Hippodrome with MTV in mind. I toured the clubs looking for likely dancers – if I saw someone breakdancing in Leicester Square, I asked them along. There was also Jeffrey Daniels from Starlight Express (not to mention the ‘Ballroom Dancing’ sequence in Broad Street) and his dancers. Paul got very involved with the dancers: they loved it.

“It was a relatively straightforward shoot, but the editing was horrendous. Paul was shot on 35mm film, transferred to video via the film negative, using a tele-cine machine. Most videos are done that way, so that you have the quality of film and the convenience of video.”

Horrendous perhaps, but with spectacular results. Well done, Nick and David.


Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001

"An updated edition of the best-seller. The story of what happened to the band members, their families and friends after the 1970 break-up is brought right up to date. A fascinating and meticulous piece of Beatles scholarship."

We owe a lot to Keith Badman for the creation of those pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - a day to day chronology of what happened to the four Beatles after the break-up and how their stories intertwined together!

Shop on Amazon

The Beatles - The Dream is Over: Off The Record 2

This edition of the book compiles more outrageous opinions and unrehearsed interviews from the former Beatles and the people who surrounded them. Keith Badman unearths a treasury of Beatles sound bites and points-of-view, taken from the post break up years. Includes insights from Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, Barbara Bach and many more.

Shop on Amazon

Paul McCartney writing

Talk more talk, chat more chat

Notice any inaccuracies on this page? Have additional insights or ideas for new content? Or just want to share your thoughts? We value your feedback! Please use the form below to get in touch with us.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

2024 • Please note this site is strictly non-commercial. All pictures, videos & quoted texts remain the property of the respective copyright owner, and no implication of ownership by us is intended or should be inferred. Any copyright owner who wants something removed should contact us and we will do so immediately. Alternatively, we would be delighted to provide credits.