Peter Jackson set to make his music video production debut on final single from The Beatles

Speaking about directing the music video, Peter Jackson says: “When Apple asked me to make the music video, I was very reluctant." "To be honest, just thinking about the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles will ever release produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with," he adds, on the thought of trying to say no to The Beatles.

"My lifelong love of The Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down. This created intense insecurity in me because I’d never made a music video before, and was not able to imagine how I could even begin to create one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago, had never actually performed the song, and had half of its members no longer with us."

Jackson settled on the lack of footage as a reason not to go ahead with the video.

"A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core," he explains. "There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used. Every shot of The Beatles needed to be genuine. By now 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."

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"I knew The Beatles don’t take no for an answer if their minds are set on something - but they didn’t even wait for me to say no. I found myself swept along as they quickly addressed my concerns," Jackson 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," he continued.

He settled on seeing the music video as a short film, and teamed up with Jabez Olssen, who edited Get Back, to help him complete it. The music video’s global premiere will follow the worldwide release of the “Now And Then” / “Love Me Do” double A-side single, which pairs the last Beatles song with the first.

Premiering this Wednesday (1 November) Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song is a 12-minute short film telling the story of how “Now And Then” was finally finished, almost five decades after it was originally written. This poignant short film, directed by Oliver Murray, tells the story behind the last Beatles song, with exclusive footage and commentary from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Sean Ono Lennon and Peter Jackson.