British Beatles Fan Club: Paul McCartney Directs His Own ‘My Valentine’ Videos

Paul McCartney Directs His Own ‘My Valentine’ Videos

Featuring Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp

World Premiere at Stella McCartney's Los Angeles Store

On Friday evening at an exclusive screening event at the Stella McCartney store in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney premiered his brand new, self directed videos for his song ‘My Valentine’. The track is one of two original compositions on his new studio album ‘Kisses on the Bottom’, which was released in February of this year and went to Number One on the Billboard Jazz Chart as well as going Top Five across the world.

The gala premiere event hosted by Paul saw a host of high profile names applauding Paul's three visual interpretations of 'My Valentine': The first featuring Natalie Portman translating the lyrics of the song into sign language and the second with Johnny Depp doing the same, with each giving distinctly different performances, making both videos compelling viewing. A third version combines both Natalie and Johnny’s performances into one film.

The videos were shot on 35mm and Paul worked with Academy Award winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight) to create these elegant and powerful films.

'My Valentine' is the second Paul McCartney music video Natalie Portman has starred in, the first being the Michel Gondry directed ‘Dance Tonight’ in 2007. For this new performance, she was exclusively dressed by Stella McCartney. Johhny Depp also plays guitar in his version and recorded the track’s guitar solo live. His guitar take was then mixed and mastered into the final track. The original guitar solo on the studio version of the song was performed by Eric Clapton.

‘Kisses on the Bottom’ is a collection of standards Paul grew up listening to in his childhood - plus two brand new McCartney compositions ‘My Valentine’ and 'Only Our Hearts'. With the help of both Grammy Award-winning producer Tommy LiPuma and Diana Krall and her band, the album was recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, as well as locations in New York and London throughout 2011.