Michael Jackson

The first music video he produced was with the Jackson 5, it was a basic video whose purpose was to promote the music video. There were no unique features to identify the music video as one of the best out. It had simple choreography but still fit the purpose. Referring to Goodwin's theory, the people in the video are dressed in a fitting way for the song and there are a lot of closeups of the performers' faces which are two outlined characteristics of successful.   

The video for Rockin' Robin can be seen above.

The next video I will be talking about is rock with you.  This video has a very conventional editing style, there is nothing to make it seem outstanding again, but consumers may find the traditional style of editing appealing as it is already within their comfort zone. The video has a contrast of colors and is quite fast and active despite the lyrics and flow of the song being relatively slow moving. The use of lights is interesting in this video though.




The third video is ''Billie Jean''.

This was a breakthrough video for Michael Jackson. It is the first interesting Pop video which tells a story instead of just showcasing basic lip syncing. This video tells a story, it follows Michael Jackson and his search for Billie Jean, it is heavily implied that she is a love interest. In the video Michael is searching for her, Often times he is shown to be alone, which confirms that ''Billy Jean is not my lover.'' There is an identifiable relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in this music video.





Following the success of Billie Jean, Michael Jackson released ''Beat It'', this music video was anticipated by an eager audience across the globe. It feels like Jackson was able to identify a solid recipe which produced good results with a video that combined lip synching and story telling to create a unique experience, as he tried to replicate it with the release following Billie Jean. Regarding some of Goodwin's key points, there is memorable choreography, close ups of Jackson being shown throughout, and a dress code for each person that is relevant and fitting. Overall, a very creative and memorable video which did not disappoint the anticipating fans.





Following Beat It comes the most famous music video of all time. ''Thriller'' single-handedly changed the way that music videos are received and viewed as well as the way they were created from that point forward. Thriller was the first music video to be added to the National Film Industry by The Library of Congress in 2009. The entire music video is fourteen minutes long, again following the recipe of memorable choreography, storyline and lip synching. This video raised the bar for all future music videos, it made a grand statement that stiff movement and basic lip synching were no longer good enough, a music video should be an event that is celebrated as something grand as opposed to something basic. Thriller was celebrated in such a way for a long time. An example of the way this video was celebrated was people going to the cinema just so they could see the full version as opposed to the 5 minute shortened version that was showed on Television at the time. Jackson's record company refused to fund this project, so it had to be paid for by the director John Landis. Jackson made paid deals with Showtime and MTV, giving them rights to show the video. Thriller is responsible for the trend of dance groups in pop videos. It was not unusual to receive a cassette tape of this song as a present for Christmas in the 80s. It was the most selling tape of all time, selling over 9 million copies, as confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records.





After Thriller was created, Michael Jackson was the undisputed most popular pop star in the world. Michael and his team knew they had a lot of expectations to live up to. The video that followed Thriller was for the song ''Bad''. The release of this video was a huge event, as when this video was released it was shown on BBC, people were fascinated to see Jackson's new image and dancing. As is typical of a Michael Jackson video, this video had very active choreography that keeps the audience interested throughout the entire video. The speed of editing varies throughout, as at certain parts of the video longer still shots are used and at certain other parts the editing is very fast and the shots are changing constantly.




The next and final video I will look at is ''Black or White''. This is a video that presents a really strong message in a creative way. It was an incredibly inventive video which cost a lot of money to produce. There were a lot of rumours surrounding Jackson's desire to change the colour of his skin through surgical advancements, as a result of this, he received backlash from black fans because they perceived this change as him being ashamed of being black. Black and White was an attempt to connect back with these fans, with the message being that skin colour is irrelevant as long as you are a good person. The video tries to promote equality, and tries to get people to stop focusing on race as much as the person themselves. Also worth noting that as in all Michael Jackson music videos this one has very unique and very active choreography which keeps the viewer engaged from start to finish.