Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Jackson 5 "Rockin Robin"



This is an incredibly basic music video, this was mainly used to promote the song. There was limited sophistication in this video, just different shots of the Jackson 5 lip syncing and pretending to play the instruments used in the song. There were different close ups used in the video as well as the dance routines used for the song.

"Rock With You"



This video is much more sophisticated than that of "Rockin Robin". There was interesting light effects in this video, the light seemed to follow Jackson whenever he moved around and sang. The costume that he wore was much more interesting in this video, using the sparkly clothing to reflect the light which gave the effect of him being the main thing to look at in this video. There were lots of close ups used on Jackson throughout this video to show that he is the main aspect of this video.

"Billy Jean"



This was the interesting first music video that did not just promote the song and use lip syncing, but it also tells a story. It contained the basics of a music video such as lip syncing, dance sequences and also close ups.

"Beat it"




This is another music video that tells an interesting story about gang warfare. This music video is different to Jackson's previous videos due to the elaborate choreographing in the dance sequence at the end which involved plenty of people rather than just Jackson dancing by himself. According to Goodwin this video contains aspects of a pop music video such as its close ups on Jackson and dance sequences.

"Thriller"




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 the 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 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 was 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 it's 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.

"Bad"

Following his success of "Thriller" Jackson was the biggest pop star in the world. His videos even made the new, The video of his song "Bad" was a major event. Shown for the first time on the BBC. People wanted to see his new image and dancing. In this video there was great use of dance a dance sequence with close ups on Jackson.

"Black or White"



This Michael Jackson video was very expensive and inventive. He used this song as an attempt to resurrect his career after the allegations of him being 'strange'. There were problems with his image, his white skin which made people believe that he wanted to be white instead of black and used this song to promote the serious message that it doesn't matter. The ending of the video was a reference of Peter Gabriel's groundbreaking video "Sledgehammer".

"Earth Song"




This video was made to promote a serious message, that of pollution. Throughout this video it could be argued that Jackson was portrayed as a Christlike figure as if he could be the person who could fix the problems of the world.

To conclude it can be argued that as digital technology developed so did Jackson's music videos, they became much longer and much more complex. He also used music videos in a way that had not been used before, he used them to: Reinvent his image, tell stories and to Address some serious issues that affected not only himself but everyone.