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Michael Jackson · S4 E5
The Thriller Video
A 14-minute short film that invented the modern music video
December 2, 1983. MTV premieres a fourteen-minute music video as a primetime event, and an album already at number one starts selling a million copies per week all over again.
Thriller, Michael Jackson (1983). The full fourteen-minute short film directed by John Landis, with makeup by Rick Baker and choreography by Michael Peters. The most expensive, most watched, and most influential music video ever made.
Thriller, Michael Jackson (1982)
Rod Temperton, the British songwriter behind Rock with You, wrote Thriller to give the album its title track and its identity. He also wrote Vincent Price's spoken-word rap, which Price nailed in two takes. The production layers synthesizers, a funky bass groove, and horror-movie sound effects into something that works as both a dance track and a midnight film score.
Sources
Rod Temperton interview, Sound on Sound, 2008
Making Michael Jackson's Thriller documentary, 1983
The Phone Call
Summer 1983. Thriller has dominated the charts for months, but Michael Jackson wants more. He contacts John Landis, the director of An American Werewolf in London, and tells him he wants to turn into a monster on camera.
“"He called me and said, 'I love An American Werewolf in London. Can you turn me into a monster?' I said, 'Sure.'"”
— John Landis (Making Michael Jackson's Thriller documentary, 1983)
Palace Theatre, Los Angeles
The movie theater scenes in the Thriller video were filmed on South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The ornate theaters on this block, built in the early 1900s, gave Michael and Ola Ray's date night gone wrong its perfect backdrop.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why does the Thriller video open with a legal disclaimer?
Somebody's Watching Me, Rockwell (1984)
Rockwell was the son of Motown founder Berry Gordy, recording under a pseudonym to avoid any perception of nepotism. The song is a paranoid synth-pop anthem about surveillance and unease, and the voice on the chorus is unmistakably Michael Jackson. Released in January 1984 at the peak of Thriller mania, this is the perfect companion piece to the Thriller video: horror as pop, paranoia as a hook.
Who choreographed the zombie dance sequence in the Thriller video alongside Michael Jackson?
Michael Jackson has turned a music video into a cultural event. Next: a Motown anniversary stage in Pasadena, a live performance of Billie Jean, and four seconds of sideways movement that 47 million people will never forget.
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