The next song that I believe that is iconic for Michael is Rock With You because it changed the public's view of him. In this music video unlike the last one with Jackson 5 where all of the members are just lip syncing; in this video he is actually singing the song. As well as singing the song lyrics, there are also other elements of the song that are also considered to be unique. One especially good feature is the use of lighting that is used throughout the video. it is a very simple set-up of background strobe lighting with a spotlight being shone on him. Another interesting thing about the video is that the costume he is wearing is rather shiny and sines even more due to the lights being shone on him.
The next video that is one of Michael's popular song is Billy Jean. This is a very interesting song because unlike the others songs we have looked at before this song is telling a story. Although there is obviously lip syncing in the song, he still manages to make the song work. The other nice effects that is included in the film is where he steps on the tiles on the floor and as he steps on them, they light up. This is used again at the end of the video but instead of us actually seeing Michael, all we can see is the tiles lighting up and because we have seen this at the beginning of the video we know it is him.
Beat It is a very similar song to Billy Jean simply because it tells a story but it is better than i think that it is better than Billy Jean because the choreography is quite elaborate at the end of the video. This is something that hasn't been present in all the songs that we have looked at so far.
Next is Michael's biggest song of all time, Thriller and is still considered to be the most famous music video by the Library of Congress which added it to it's National Film Registry in 2009 and was in fact their first music video entry. The video is seen to be a cultural milestone for music videos everywhere because of the elaborate choreography, the costumes and dialogue and the fact that the video was a long version of a music video which in turn makes the song seem like a mini-movie that can be edited down to a smaller version. The longer version of Thriller actually runs for 14 minutes and on Youtube has managed to get up to 100 million views. Whenever MTV had shown the song, they would normally run the five minute version of the song but this version still contained the prologue of the music video where the couple are in the movie theatre. The video for this song cost $500,000 to make and Michael's record company initially had no intention of paying for it since the album was on the downswing. The director of the video, John Landis says that Michael really wanted to turn into a monster so he offered to pay for the clip himself but also because he wanted to bring back the short film genre. Michael didn't actually need to pay for the video because they made deals with Showtime and MTV to cover the costs. Showtime then decided to show a one hour special for 'the making of' documentary and the 14 minute video before it was shown anywhere else. The director of MTV heard of this and was outraged that he was going to lose a Michael Jackson video to Showtime. So he paid $250,000 for the exclusive broadcast rights once Showtime's window ended. The video won Best Performance Video, Best Choreography and Viewer's Choice at the first MTV Music Awards in 1984. Since the song was made in 1982, you could buy a VHS or beta copy of Thriller including the full video. This tape then became the biggest selling music video of all time and was later certified in the Guinness World Records as the top selling music video of all time, moving 9 million units.
No comments:
Post a Comment