Short Film of the Day: ‘Free as a Bird’

April 11, 2020

Music videos are, of course, short films too. And they don’t get any better than the Beatles’ Free as a Bird (1995). Directed by Joe Pytka and produced by Vincent Joliet — with creative input from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — the video premiered on ITV and ABC as part of The Beatles Anthology. (The song was subsequently released on the Anthology 1 album.)

The song was the first “new” composition by the Beatles since they broke up in 1970. This version took John Lennon’s original composition and home demo from 1977 and polished and expanded it with vocal and instrumental contributions by the other three Beatles.

For more information on the dreamlike video, which reportedly features as many as 100 visual allusions to Beatles songs, see Wikipedia. And go here for an index of all my Short Films of the Day.