A Little Less Sixteen Candles
The website for We Can’t Stop Thinking: The Chicago Idea House has a page about the video, on which it says:
We designed a type treatment for the opening titles of Fall Out Boy’s vampire theme music video at 3am the night before the six and a half minute video premiered on MTV’s TRL.
This info is an updated version of the information found in the post-production section of this site. I’ll fix that page up, um. Eventually? Heh?
Two updates in one day? What’s the world coming to. The extremely fabulous Stuntworks website (http://www.stuntworks.biz/) has a show reel on their front page which includes part of the Sixteen Candles video and behind-the-scenes shots. There’s also a short (but awesome) video of behind-the-scenes work in their ‘gallery’ section.
I really am going to do a transcript of the commentary. Eventually. Possibly when time freezes and new hours are added to each day.
Until then, here’s a tiny update! Some books which mention the video which are available:
Don’t Hold Your Breath: Nothing New from Brian Ewing contains a full page print of The Fearless Vampire Killers poster, and includes Ewing’s explanation of the design.
A Visitor’s Guide to Mystic Falls mentions the video in the essay Damon Salvatore: Vampire Hunter. Pete’s role is mentioned in a section about the history and pop cultural role of vampires who hunt other vampires. (I’m the author of the essay in question, but whatever, it still counts.)
Have I missed any? Let me know at mizmary@gmail.com!
Well, clearly me saying that I was going to update again ’soon’ was a lie, as it’s more than half a year since my last post. Whoops?
Here’s some quasi-related-to-the-video stuff that’s happened since then.
A video from OK!: things Pete Wentz wants to go away in 2010. One of them is ‘vampires’.
Pete tweets: I just got asked what vampire I play in those movies. Uh the short one that they never show.
Speaking of vampire movies, Joe’s not especially looking forward to “Let Me In”, tweeting: Let The Right One In (awesome film/book) remade and renamed Let Me In. Consensus…lame. Trailer-http://imdb.to/cKUeFb Hollywood seems to take zero risks these days, only remaking and ruining amazing films/stories in the name of what seems “safe”. Bummer.
Here are some designs from Clandestine Industries which are relevant to my interests:
What’s this – Smokey and the Batheart? No, it’s the Firebat Tee from Clandestine Industries. Printed on a super duper soft Black American Apparel 2001 Fine Jersey Tee is a red, late 1970’s Pontiac Firebird with a Firebird logo-inspired Firebat on the hood. The design wraps from back to front around the left side of the shirt. This shirt was exclusively designed for Clandestine by artist Brandon Rike
Firebat Tee
Firebat Tee
Firebat Tee
Short sleeve t-shirt has “Sweet Neck” print on the front of the tee, with bloody Clandestine text on back neckline. Limited Edition of under 150. This shirt was exclusively designed for Clandestine by artist Ken Garduno. (100% Cotton, Machine Wash Cold. Made in USA.)
Sweet Neck
Sweet Neck
Sweet Neck
Eventually I will get the commentary from the Greatest Hits dvd transcribed and uploaded, too. For certain values of ‘eventually’.
So the new Fall Out Boy “Believers Never Die” collection included DVD commentary tracks on all the music videos. I’ll do a big post/page dedicated to the Sixteen Candles commentary (Hyenas! Acting! Orgasm faces!) but for now here’s a quick query based on the video for “The Take Over, The Break’s Over”: Andy asks if the car is the same one from the Sixteen Candles video, but the question isn’t answered.
To me, it looks like it may well be — they’re both muscle cars from, I’d guess, the late sixties? But I am SO not a car girl, so I can’t be in any way certain. Anybody know?
The page on the novel Sunglasses After Dark has been updated — the book’s author left a comment with lots of extra information, hurrah! Audience participation is neato-keen. Also see that page for another link between Decaydance and vampires.
The other update to this site is the banner above the menu on the left, which will take you to the website for the Wolf House series of YA vampire novels by your intrepid webmistress. Fans of the 16 Candles video are encouraged to check them out!
Pete answered a question about the video in his latest update:
Q: Vampires or Werewolves? Oh, by the way, Pete, I love the look in a little less than 16 candles. where did you get the idea?
Posted by: CheyStumpWentz Jul 10, 2009A: the movie “the lost boys” meets “clockwork orange” meets “blade”- personally i like coyotes cos they run as a gang and they arent interested in letting any humans in.
I think this is the first time anyone has made a direct nod to A Clockwork Orange’s influence on the video. David Bowie also drew heavily on A Clockwork Orange when he was creating Ziggy Stardust’s look. Just random trivia there for you.
Pete has taken to dedicating ‘A Little Less Sixteen Candles’ to Twilight, with introductions such as “This is a song about Edward Cullen, the bloodsucker”. In the past he’s also been known to say it’s about My Chemical Romance, presumably because they, too, are/were vampires.
In other news, William Beckett — head of the Dandies in the Sixteen Candles video — posted a photograph of his shopping selections at Best Buy, including ‘Let The Right One In’. You can find out more about this movie’s (tenuous) connection to the music video here.
Lastly, here’s a photograph of Pete and Alan on-set at the Sixteen Candles video.
At the FC messageboards, when asked about the 20-minute version, Andy said:
ya know, i cant even remember what the long version was. i dont think we fully finished it all. we were actually talking about this the other day, and brought up that we should just finish it all sometime soon.
From Patrick’s site PatrickStump.com:
I don’t like a lot of vampire movies. One amazing one is the F.W. Murnau’s classic silent film “Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Graunes” (more commonly just called “Nosferatu,” cause I mean, come on) in which Max Shreck plays the horrifying “Count Orlock” (a legally plagiarised Count Dracula). The great dark comedy “Shadow of the Vampire,” was based on the Hollywood legend that Shreck not only hadn’t made any other movie before, but his chilling performance was due to his actually being a real vampire. “Shadow of the Vampire,” featured John Malkovich as an overzealous film-maker and Willem Dafoe a Shreck, in this case a real vampire. This makes Dafoe one of the few actors to portray both Jesus Christ and some form of Count Dracula.
Dafoe (who’s real name is “William,” but kept it due to an interesting type-o) was originally considered for the role of the Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.” Oddly enough, its sequel “Batman Returns,” featured the equally creepy character actor Christopher Walken as a character also named “Max Shreck.”
