It was 1:30 in the afternoon Thursday, and a mermaid's tail was bobbing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast at Pt. Mugu. The shimmery, blue sea creature was playing siren to Jack's Mannequin singer-keyboardist, Andrew McMahon, in an upcoming video conceptualized by bestselling "Twilight" saga author Stephenie Meyer.
Meyer is being billed as the co-director of "The Resolution" video, even though "I've never directed anything," the 34-year-old author said on set, where dozens of fully clothed music and movie folk were milling around the Ventura County beach. "Clearly I have no experience. They're just running things by me."
Her impression midway through the shoot, which, in reality, was being shot by director Noble Jones: "It looks good. It looks the way I imagined it, so that's really cool."
What Meyer had imagined for the video was a mermaid who's also a stalker. Everywhere McMahon goes, the mermaid follows, flooding the landscape as the 26-year-old singer moves from ocean to desert to mountaintop, hauling his upright piano in the bed of an ancient Ford pickup. (Any similarities to the vintage red Chevy that heroine Bella drives in the “Twilight” books are purely coincidental, said director Jones; Meyer had written the video with a U-Haul in mind.)
Never mind that "The Resolution" has absolutely nothing to do with old trucks or with mermaids. When the band's frontman wrote the song last year, "it was sort of about my experience dealing with the cancer thing," said McMahon, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005 and later received a bone-marrow transplant from his sister. "It was me coming to some place of acceptance with the past and deciding maybe I haven't figured out what I'm trying to accomplish, but I know I'm looking for some kind of resolve."
Meyer wasn't aware of that story when she wrote the video's treatment. Mermaids, she said, are "a subject I've always been fascinated with. When I was letting my imagination run wild for this [video], there were several different story lines I came up with and this one I thought had the most visual impact."
As for the longstanding rumor that Meyer will pen an upcoming book involving such a creature, "I don't know if I will or not," she said.
Mermaids and cancer might not be the likeliest of literary leaps, but Meyer's connection to Jack's Mannequin came naturally enough. It began when the author included a song from the band's 2005 debut album on her "playlist" for the 1-month-old “Twilight” saga finale, “Breaking Dawn.” (The author has created playlists that are roughly equivalent to soundtracks for each of the books, which she posts on her website, www.stepheniemeyer.com/.
For the "Breaking Dawn" list, Meyer selected the Jack's single, "Dark Blue," along with tracks from the Beach Boys, Coldplay and her favorite band, Muse. With its unintended vampire lyrical references -- i.e. a neck and an ambulance -- “Dark Blue” was cited as inspiration for Book I of the current bestseller, most of which takes place during Bella's honeymoon with her undead groom Edward on a remote island. But another lyric in the song, referencing a “whole town under water,” also could have influenced the concept for “The Resolution.”
According to McMahon, Jack's had been in talks with Meyer to perform as part of her recent "Breaking Dawn" book tour/concert series, but the timing didn't work out. When it came time to solicit video ideas for the first single from the forthcoming "The Glass Passenger," due from Warner Bros. Records Sept. 30, McMahon reached out to Meyer and she signed on.
“The Resolution” currently ranks 35 on the alternative music chart BDS and, as of Thursday, had been added to the playlists of 27 radio stations. L.A.'s KROQ-FM added the song to its roster the same day as the video shoot -- a first for the band. “The Resolution” is the clear standout track on the forthcoming record and is an artistic and emotional leap for the group. But the Meyer connection seems to be giving the song some extra lift, married, as it is, to the author’s enormously successful book series and an overlapping romance-inclined youth audience.
Meyer is being billed as the co-director of "The Resolution" video, even though "I've never directed anything," the 34-year-old author said on set, where dozens of fully clothed music and movie folk were milling around the Ventura County beach. "Clearly I have no experience. They're just running things by me."
Her impression midway through the shoot, which, in reality, was being shot by director Noble Jones: "It looks good. It looks the way I imagined it, so that's really cool."
What Meyer had imagined for the video was a mermaid who's also a stalker. Everywhere McMahon goes, the mermaid follows, flooding the landscape as the 26-year-old singer moves from ocean to desert to mountaintop, hauling his upright piano in the bed of an ancient Ford pickup. (Any similarities to the vintage red Chevy that heroine Bella drives in the “Twilight” books are purely coincidental, said director Jones; Meyer had written the video with a U-Haul in mind.)
Never mind that "The Resolution" has absolutely nothing to do with old trucks or with mermaids. When the band's frontman wrote the song last year, "it was sort of about my experience dealing with the cancer thing," said McMahon, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005 and later received a bone-marrow transplant from his sister. "It was me coming to some place of acceptance with the past and deciding maybe I haven't figured out what I'm trying to accomplish, but I know I'm looking for some kind of resolve."
Meyer wasn't aware of that story when she wrote the video's treatment. Mermaids, she said, are "a subject I've always been fascinated with. When I was letting my imagination run wild for this [video], there were several different story lines I came up with and this one I thought had the most visual impact."
As for the longstanding rumor that Meyer will pen an upcoming book involving such a creature, "I don't know if I will or not," she said.
Mermaids and cancer might not be the likeliest of literary leaps, but Meyer's connection to Jack's Mannequin came naturally enough. It began when the author included a song from the band's 2005 debut album on her "playlist" for the 1-month-old “Twilight” saga finale, “Breaking Dawn.” (The author has created playlists that are roughly equivalent to soundtracks for each of the books, which she posts on her website, www.stepheniemeyer.com/.
For the "Breaking Dawn" list, Meyer selected the Jack's single, "Dark Blue," along with tracks from the Beach Boys, Coldplay and her favorite band, Muse. With its unintended vampire lyrical references -- i.e. a neck and an ambulance -- “Dark Blue” was cited as inspiration for Book I of the current bestseller, most of which takes place during Bella's honeymoon with her undead groom Edward on a remote island. But another lyric in the song, referencing a “whole town under water,” also could have influenced the concept for “The Resolution.”
According to McMahon, Jack's had been in talks with Meyer to perform as part of her recent "Breaking Dawn" book tour/concert series, but the timing didn't work out. When it came time to solicit video ideas for the first single from the forthcoming "The Glass Passenger," due from Warner Bros. Records Sept. 30, McMahon reached out to Meyer and she signed on.
“The Resolution” currently ranks 35 on the alternative music chart BDS and, as of Thursday, had been added to the playlists of 27 radio stations. L.A.'s KROQ-FM added the song to its roster the same day as the video shoot -- a first for the band. “The Resolution” is the clear standout track on the forthcoming record and is an artistic and emotional leap for the group. But the Meyer connection seems to be giving the song some extra lift, married, as it is, to the author’s enormously successful book series and an overlapping romance-inclined youth audience.
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