In the early days The Jackson 5 produced a song called "The Rockin Robin" in 1971 which was a cover of the original by Bobby Day. The music video was a basic video to promote their music as a whole. In the music video it consists of the band performing on stage with synchronised dancing, instruments and Michael Jackson lip syncing. The music video consists of many key features of Andrew Goodwins theory such as dance routines, disjuncture relationship between lyrics and video, close ups of the artist and the notion of looking through screens.
Michael Jacksons song 'Rock With You' in 1979 was his first big solo hit after splitting up with The Jackson 5. This music video reached number one on both the pop and R&B singles charts. According to Billboard, the song was the fourth biggest single of 1980.It is also considered one of the last hits of the disco era. The music video consists of Michael Jackson in a defined glittery silver suit which is very iconic to him as a person as that was what he was known to be with. The music video shows Michael dancing to his own song in front of a laser which gives out a disco effect also it highlights the various The music video again relates to Andrew Goodwins theory by having a dance routine that he performs alone, it has an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the video and the visual style of the glittery suit is shown. Many close up shots are shown in the music video which gives the audience a greater detail to who is singing the song, due to the lip synching that is included.
Michael Jackson created a song called "Billie Jean" in 1982 in which he created a music video that was the first interesting pop video that tells a story and does more than just lip syncing. The music video is shown like a mini story that may suggests that they are derived from a real-life experience, in which a female fan claimed that Jackson (or one of his brothers) had fathered one of her twins. However, Jackson himself stated that "Billie Jean" was based on groupies he had encountered. Jackson sported a new look for the video; curled hair. Jackson's clothes, a black leather suit with a pink shirt and a red bow tie, were copied by children around the US. As seen in all of Jackson's music video's, he performs his own dance moves in which many people copied after this, this became very iconic to him as well as his white glove that he performed this song with. This meets Andrew Goodwins theory of key features to a music video as the glove and dance moves were used all over the world!
Michael Jackson in 1983 bought out the song "Beat It" in which the song was promoted with a short film that featured Jackson bringing two gangs together through the power of music and dance. It is one of the artist's most recognizable signature songs, and a favorite of many Jackson fans worldwide. "Beat It" received the Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, as well as two American Music Awards. This music video has many key features of music videos relating to Andrew Goodwin's theory as a dance routine was included which therefore many people joined in, also many people over the world learned this dance routine. The relationship between the song and the video are illustrative as the lyrics and the music video match up together. Michael Jackson has a visual style with the curled hair, leather jacket and he also had a new style of high cut trousers with white socks.The choreography at the end of the music video has been put well together due to all the men being in time and same sequence. The whole way through this music video there is a story told, even until the end.
The song "Thriller" was considered the most famous music video of all time and is added to the National Film Registry in 2009 . This music video was so popular due to the fact that there was a 14 minute mini-movie, which was shortened down to the music video. The mini movie had over 100 million views when it was published onto YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran under 5 minutes but still contained about a minute of non-song content in a story line that makes up most of the movie. The editing, especially at the beginning, is more like a short film than a music video. The title at the beginning enhances this film-like quality.
Finance
The video itself cost about $500,000 to make and Jackson's record company had no intention of paying for it. As Jackson's album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of its songs. John Landis (The Director), Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project Jackson suggested because he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved doing. 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 1 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.
In 1995, Jackson produced a song with his younger sister Janet Jackson called "Scream". This music video is known to be THE most expensive music video every produced, costing a huge $7,000,000 and even with inflation adjusted in 2015 it is now worth $10,834,025. "Scream" is cited primarily as an aggressive, retaliatory song directed at the tabloid media and their coverage of the child sexual abuse accusations made against Michael Jackson in 1993. This music video includes many special effects which was why this music video became so popular.
Thank you. It might be worth looking at "Scream" - the most expensive Pop Video of all time.
ReplyDeleteI've sent you a new Power Point.
Worth the money? Mr Williamson