Micheal Jackson King of pop videos

Not just ‘King of Pop’ but ‘King of the Pop Video’

Micheal Jackson first appeared in music videos early in his career as part of the Jackson 5 in the music video 'Rockin Robin' in 1971. This video is very basic made to promote the song , there is use of lip syncing and close ups of the artists and a few cuts however there is not much sophistication in the editing. 

In the 'Rock with you video we begin to see a lot more sophistication in the videos. Micheal Jackson is seen is a shiny and interesting costume. There is very good use of light in the video to create an interesting background and silhouettes. There are a few close up and use of continuity editing such as fades.
 



His video Billy Jean was the first time were he didn't just lip synch. There was a story to this video , unlike his other videos they edit to the beat. There are a lot of visual effects used in the video and special effects to create an artificial background.




The music video for beat it shows much more prorogation , the choreography is much more eloquent and the story is much more clear , even Micheal Jackson's performance has improved in this video.




Micheal's most famous video was Thriller.This 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

         and the  concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song, the edited down for the short version.

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-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie the couple is watching at the beginning. The long version of "Thriller" runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up 

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 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.

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 bestselling 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.

Following Thriller Mickeal Jackson was no the biggest pop star in the world. So much that he mad the news , the music video for 'bad' was a major event shown on for the first time on BBC. People wanted to see his new image and dancing. The choreography in the video is dazzling and he new image stands out among the background dancers.




This music video was a response to allegations of 'white skin'. People were criticizing him for hating his black skin and not being proud and in this video he justified himself. The music video was very inventive and expensive. Throughout the video he dances amount different cultures.