Michael Jackson

Introduction 

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record prouder, dancer and actor.
He was born on August 29th 1958 and died June 25th 2009 at age 50. The cause of death is said to be due to cardiac arrest induced by propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication.

He was called the King of Pop, for his contributions to music, dance and fashion, alongside his publicized personal life which made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

Michael had began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s Michael became a dominant figure in popular music.

"Rockin Robin" 1971

The music video for "Rockin Robin" shows Jackson five performing however the main focus is on Michael Jackson who is the lead singer. It also shows a variety of different clips emerged into one this demonstrates genre characteristics which confirm Andrew Goodwin's theory of key features in a music video. 

The music video is basic and promotes the song in a well manner. It shows a limited variety of sophistication and lacks complex techniques to with editing and special effects. Michael Jackson is also lip syncing throughout the whole music video. 

"Rock With You" 1979

The opening shot of Rock with you shows us a silhouette of Michael Jackson dancing in a front of a light projector. The use of this creates an enigma for the viewers as we are eager to the see who the person is as their identify is hidden by the light. 

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs. The applies to "Rock with You" as we see a section where it is a close up of Michael singing. The light that is shown behind him makes him look dazzling as well as eye catching for the audience. It then cuts to an extremely long shot of Michael performing with the light still shining above him, it then fades to a close up of him performing from the other side.

"Billie Jean" 1982

In this music video we can see that there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. This once again confirms to Andrew Goodwin's theory, that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals either portrayed as illustrative, amplifying or contradicting. The lyrics is about a girl named Billie Jean lying by claiming Michael is the farther of her child, in the music video a man is stalking Michael Jackson trying to set him up of a crime even though he is innocent which portrays the story of Billie Jean.

In the first chorus we hear Michael say "Billie Jean is not my love, she's just a girl claiming I am the one but the kid is not my son" Whilst Michael sings this he is standing and there is a man behind him (referring to a police officer) trying to arrest him, this is seen as two shot, however as the camera cuts away we can see Michael getting away. 

This music video represents Michael as an entertainer which is emphasized when he is dancing throughout the music video. At the time of this music video it was very unique as not many people had videos of them dancing it in, especially in the manner that Michael did. Many artists where then influenced by his music videos and make reference to MJ's Billie jean therefore it has intertextual reference which again confirms to Goodwin's theory rule number 5. 

"Thriller" 1983

The music video of Thriller is considered the most famous music video of all time by the Library of Congress, which added it to it's National Film Registry in 2009, the first music video in their registry. 

The video was a cultural milestone which introduced elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue and 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 stop content in a story line that limits most of the movie the couple is watching in 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 song. 

According to John Landis (the director), Jackson really wanted to run 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.

The Finance 

MJ did not have to pay for the video out of his 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 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 Showtimes window ended. MTV was founded on the principle of not paying for videos, so Pittman got around this by paying for 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 the entire album, but it also used a horror theme and was narrated by Vincent Price.

Most homes has video cassette recorders in 1983 and sales of videos with 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.

The 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.

Thriller was directed by John Landis and produced by George Folsey, Michael Jackson, John Landis and Jr.

To begin with, the illusions and make-up that were used were phenomenal especially for the time period that it was made. There was a lot of organisation and effort that had to be done into creating the music video, from how long it would have taken the actors and actresses to get ready to the many hours of rehearsals it took to get the dance routine perfect.

At the start of the video there are comments that are from Michael Jackson himself which are what he thought about the video, it also ends the same way which adds a touch of brilliance to the music video.

The storyline that is being introduced starts with a horror story, where Michael is a very petite, pale female character. It then goes on to where the girl is about to get eaten and instantly cuts to the scene which shows below where the cinema is full of people watching the film. This touch makes us feel as if we are actually watching a film in the cinema.

The music then starts after the happy couple have come out of the cinema and the camera paces from this shot to the next and then zooms in to see the two characters. The dance routine is one of the most memorable dance routines ever, as Michael dances with the zombies. The dance routine continues for a good 5 minutes, which was very interesting to watch as during the time period it was uncommon for dancing to happen in music videos, let alone last this long.

"Bad" 1987 

Following Michael's success of "Thriller" he was the biggest pop star in the world and his videos made the news. 

The video of "Bad" was a major event. Shown for the first time on BBC. People wanted to see his new image and dancing.


Just like "thriller" Bad was another music video that had consistent dancing throughout. Michael's looks were different to when he shot thriller, he appeared must lighter however this was because of a skin condition that Michael was facing called vertiligo.

Once again Goodwin's theory is being applied with the performance of his dancing and use of close ups of Michael. In Bad we was the lyrics and the visuals contradicting themselves as the music video shows Michael becoming one with the bad guys and dancing together where as the lyrics are suggesting that he is "Bad" In this music video he has portrayed the oppositie as he actually shows himself to be a peacemaker.

"The Way You Make Me Feel" 1987 

In this music video we see Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze apply perfectly, as the woman is viewed as the objects of male erotic desire, and women do not have agency nor do they move the plot forward. 

Once again Michael has his own performance of him dancing which confirms Goodwin's theory. However in this music video we see the female character surrounded by a group of Men wearing a short dress in the middle of the night. We see the female trying to escape but can not find a way out as Michael will not stop chasing after her, she is then accompanied by a group of females and she then stops running away and enjoys the attention as suggests that he shows her what he's got to prove. Laura Muley's theory applies perfectly as we see just how men view women to be. At the end of the video, we see that the female character has given up her phase of playing hard to get and finally gives into Michael has we see her embarrasses Michael.

"Black Or White" 1991

The music video for black and white was very expensive and inventive. It had cost around $4,000,000 to make and today that would be around $6,925,000. Clearly we can see this was one of his highest budget music video's of all time.

This video was to resurrect his career and sent out a serious message as he was having serious problems with his skin condition vertilago which seemed to be getting worst. He had also had an array of allegations of being 'strange' and many other things.



In conclusion, I believe digital technology helped Michael Jackson's use of the pop video as it allowed him to add more special effects used for example in Black and White it allowed him to change from different person and different skin tones and gender through the use of modern digital technology which he may not have been able to do many years before.
His videos became much longer and complex through the use of digital technology and the music video became just as important as the song itself. Michael used pop videos to be able to reinvent his image, tell stories and address serious issues that he believed people needed to know about or things that he wanted to share.