Michael Jackson

"Not just ‘King of Pop’ but ‘King of the Pop Video’"

Rockin' Robin

Released: February 17, 1972

This is a cover of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin" which was released during the days of Jackson Five. 

The music video is very basic with some superimposing, basic cuts and use of lip syncing. There is a variety of angles, high and low, central and side but when compared to his later music videos, this displays limited sophistication.

Rock With You

Released: November 3, 1979

Rock With You is the second single off of his solo album "Off The Wall". There is a definite star image quality about him with his sparkly sequined suit and distinctive disco dance moves. The mise-en-scene overall is thoughtful and sophisticated; laser lights are glaring behind him to enhance his costume with various close up, mid and long shots from different angles show that Michael Jackson is breaking through as a solo artist and finding himself as an artist.

Billie Jean

Released: January 2, 1983

Billie Jean is more like a short film than a music video as it does not purely focus on lip-syncing and dancing. There is larger variety of shot types including eye-line matches and match on action shots alongside more props, costumes and a large theatrical set. There is clever use of lighting throughout; with each step he takes, a slab of pavement lights up or a step on a staircase lights up. The editing is also much more effective in order to create these new shots and the split screen editing which occurs later on in the music video.

Eye-line match 1

Eye-line match 2

Large set

Match on action shot 1

Match on action shot 2

Match on action shot 3

The use of lighting and split screen editing

Beat It

Released: February 14, 1983

Michael Jackson continues to create these theatrical, story telling music videos with Beat It. This music video established him as an international pop music icon and it was the first treatment of black youths on the streets in music videos. Jackson also had the idea to cast genuine gang members - 80 of which featured in the music video which opened up many employment opportunities. This music video has a positive message as the elaborate choreography at the end merges the rival gangs together in music and dance which encourages them to leave violence and hatred behind. 

Thriller

Released:

November 12, 1983 (Worldwide)
January 23, 1984 (US)

Full 14 minute version:

The editing, particularly at the beginning, is more like a short film than a music video. The title at the beginning enhances this film-like quality.

The music video is considered the most famous music video of all time, at least by the Library of Congress, which added it to its National Film Registry in 2009, the first music video in their registry. The video was a cultural milestone introducing elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue, the concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song, then edited down for the short version. The long version of "Thriller" runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran a little under five minutes but still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie the couple is watching at the beginning. 

The video cost about $500,000 to make. Jackson's record company had no intention of paying for it, since the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of its songs. According to John Landis (Director), Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project because he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved. Jackson didn't have to pay for the video out of pocket because they made deals with Showtime and MTV to cover the costs. Showtime got to air a one hour special with the "making of" documentary and the 14-minute film before it was broadcast anywhere else. When MTV heard about this, their executive Bob Pittman decided that losing a Michael Jackson video to Showtime was unacceptable, and paid $250,000 for the exclusive broadcast rights once Showtime's window ended. MTV was founded on the principle of not paying for videos, so Pittman got around this by paying for the documentary, even though the money was really used to pay for the film. 

The video won for Best Performance Video, Best Choreography, and Viewers Choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. With its famous graveyard dance, the video started the trend of group dance scenes in Pop videos. The video owes a debt to Alice Cooper, who in 1975 created a movie based on the stage show for his Welcome To My Nightmare tour. Cooper's production was based on an entire album, but it also used a horror theme and was narrated by Vincent Price. Most homes had Video Cassette Recorders in 1983 and sales of videos were big business. You could buy a VHS or beta copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which included the full video and also "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller," a behind the scenes documentary. This tape became the best selling music video at the time, and was later certified by Guinness World Records as the top selling music video of all time, moving 9 million units. The timing helped, as the video was released a few weeks before Christmas.

Most homes had Video Cassette Recorders in 1983 and sales of videos were big business. You could buy a VHS or beta copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which included the full video and also "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller," a behind the scenes documentary. This tape became the best selling music video at the time, and was later certified by Guinness World Records as the top selling music video of all time, moving 9 million units. The timing helped, as the video was released a few weeks before Christmas.

The video below shows some of the making of Thriller. It shows us the large make-up artist team, set designers and costume designers discussing how they created certain effects. For example the costumes were old suits that were wrecked and "zombiefied". The set had realistic props such as coffins to relate the zombie theme alongside smoke machines to create a gloomy feel.

 

The Way You Make Me Feel

Released: November 9, 1987

This song is about love and falling in love which allows Michael Jackson to introduce women as the main object of attraction in his music videos. Mulvey's male gaze is evident in this music video as the woman is viewed as an object of male erotic desire as there is a mid-shot of her body wearing a short, tight fitted dress. She also lacks agency, although Jackson is the one chasing her, she ends up with him in the end.

Bad

Released: September 7, 1987

Following Thriller, Michael Jackson was the biggest pop star internationally. His videos made the news and so the release of Bad's music video was a major event. The full music video for "Bad" is another short film at 18 minutes long, written by novelist and screenwriter Richard Price. These elaborate dance sequences have become an essential feature of his music videos. There also appears to be a recurrent theme with his work as many of the music videos involve gang-related themes with a positive message to teach young audiences possibly involved in gang related behaviour. 

Black Or White ($4,000,000 – Today $6,925,000)
Released: November 11, 1991

The pop video was very expensive and inventive, following Jackson through Africa to Asia to Russia and so on. The serious message behind it is that race should not cause problems in the world just as racism and discrimination. One part of the music video highlights the issue of war and terrorism, perhaps as result of races fighting against one another. A shot of Jackson at the top of the Statue of Liberty has connotations of freedom and strength through racial unity and equality. This music video was used to try and resurrect his career as there were allegations of him being ‘strange’ in terms of problems with his image. People began to speculate that he was bleaching his skin to become white but others suggest that he has the skin disease, vitiligo. Therefore this song and music video proved to be controversial as he appeared to be unsure of this own image.


The end sequence of the face morphing is reference to Peter Gabriel's ground-breaking music video for Sledgehammer.

Conclusion

As digital technology developed so did Michael Jackson’s use of the pop video. He used his videos alongside his music to form a message of some sort for example in Beat It, he diminishes gang culture and violence through dance. Newer equipment and better editing tools allowed him to create sophisticated and artistic choreography with a large cast. In Black and White I feel that Jackson has taken advantage of digital technology the most as the effects and props used are outstanding. Without it he wouldn't have achieved the fire scene, the face morphing and the successful green screen section on the Statue of Liberty. In order to show off these skills, his videos became much longer and more complex and so the videos became as important as the song itself. Jackson used pop videos to reinvent his image, tell these controversial stories and address serious issues such as race, terrorism and violence.