Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and actor. He was nicknamed the King of Pop, and his contributions to music and dance, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in pop culture for over four decades. Jackson's album, Thriller, in 1982 was the best selling album of all time. Jackson also popularized a number of complicated dance moves, such as the robot and the moonwalk. 

Rockin' Robin

Rockin' Robin (1971) was just a basic music video aiming to promote the song. It contains slow motion shots  throughout, which is present throughout many scenes, such as the band dancing all together. This video also contains limited sophistication, as the editing is not very professional; it does not edit to the beat of the song. However, it does conform to a few of Andrew Goodwin's characteristics of a music video for it has a dance routine for the band, and it has an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, for many of the scenes are repeated throughout the video. This video also has an unprofessional tone for the lip-syncing in the video is not synced with the singing at any time.

Rock With You

Rock With You (1979) had better editing and lighting than Rockin' Robin, and it was slightly more professional. The video presents a silhouette of a man just dancing, with a green light behind him, and as soon as the music starts, the light shines on Michael Jackson, and he starts to sing. The green light is present throughout the entire video, and it is always behind Jackson, which makes him the centre of attention. Jackson is the only person present in the video, and it conforms to Goodwin's theory for the narrative is amplifying, as there is repetition of another clip of Jackson dancing behind the centre Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is always in view in every single shot, even when there is a shot of Michael's legs dancing, a small clip of Michael is in between the legs. In this video, Michael's costume consists of sparkly diamonds, which shows that he is dressed up for the video, and shows the professional side of the video for Michael's costume matched the genre of the song. 

Billy Jean

Billy Jean (1982) is Michael Jackson's first interesting pop video which tells a story, and it does more than just lip-syncing. It starts off in black and white, whilst there is just the beat of the song. However, when Michael Jackson appears in the video, it turns to colour, which presents Michael as the important person in the video. Another way to make Michael Jackson the significant person in this video was because of the timing of the electronic floor lighting. Whenever Jackson walks, the floor lights up, which puts him in the centre of attention and it is just as effective as having a light shining on him. This video tells a story in a very interesting and professional way. There is a man in a trench coat who is seen to be following Jackson around, and in the end, the man in the trench coat, who is presented as a form of paparazzi for he is photographing Jackson, gets arrested after he attempts to follow Michael and take photos of him, and then Michael disappears, leaving only the man in the trench coat. However, in the end scene of the video, the man in the trench coat is seen dragged off by police, and there is just a light on the floor, like how Jackson's footprints would be, following the police and the man. This video is a very interesting way to tell a story, and it will intrigue the audience into wanting to watch more of his videos. 

Beat It

Beat It (1983) tells a very interesting story, however, it is different to how Billy Jean's story was presented. In this video, unlike jackson's others, Michael was not present until the third line of the song. The other characters in the narrative were seen to be walking around with a strut, with a determined look on their faces. When Michael Jackson first appeared, he was seen lying on his bed wearing, what the audience assumes, his pyjamas. In the narrative of the video, there are two different groups presented which are opposing each other in what seems to be a fight, for they both have a weapon, however, they are dancing throughout the fight, which makes it seem less serious and more of an interesting way to present a fight in a music video. In Michael's next appearance in this video, he is seen to be wearing a bright orange jacket which makes him still the centre of attention, even though he is not shown in the video as often as the other characters. At the very end of the video, Michael comes between the fight and stops it, and then all of the characters start to dance. The ending presents an elaborately choreographed dance which makes the video very professional and it would impress the audience for there is a big group of people who had to learn a choreographed dance and make sure its perfect. 

Thriller

This music video is considered to be the most famous music video of all time. Thriller ( 1983) was a cultural milestone introducing: 

• Elaborate choreography
• Costumes and dancing
• The concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song, then editing down for the short version. 

The long version of Thriller runs for 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 for a little under 5 minutes, yet still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie that the couple are watching at the beginning. The video costed around $500,000, however, his record company had no intention of paying it, since the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of the album's songs. 

According to the director, John Landis, Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project for he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved. 

Jackson didnt have to pay for the video out of his pocket for they made deals with Showtime and MTV to cover the costs. Showtime was allowed to air a one hour special with the "making of" documentary and the 14-minute film before it was broadcasted 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. This video's inspiration was from Alice Cooper's 1975 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. Sales for the video was very well timed, for you could buy a VHS or beta copy of Jackson's Behind The Scenes and the actual video, and the tape became the best selling music video of all times, and was later certified by Guinness World Records for the best selling music video, moving 9million units. The timing of the video helped for it was released 3 weeks before christmas.