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Michael Jackson · S9 E6
The Music Video as Art Form
He didn't make videos. He made short films with budgets no one else had.
December 2, 1983, the night the Thriller short film premieres on MTV. It runs fourteen minutes, cost around $500,000 to produce (roughly ten times the going rate for a music video), and by the time it is over, the music video is no longer a promotional tool.
Liberian Girl, Michael Jackson (1989). Official music video. Dozens of celebrities (Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Olivia Newton-John) mill around a film set waiting for Michael. The final shot reveals he was behind the camera the entire time, directing the scene the viewer thought was unscripted. The perfect metaphor for who he really was.
Liberian Girl, Michael Jackson (1989)
One of the later singles from Bad, built on Afro-Caribbean percussion and a sweeping string arrangement. Michael wrote the song in the early 1980s, reportedly inspired by actress Elizabeth Taylor. The music video cost less than most of his short films but achieved something more conceptually daring: it turned the entire format inside out by making the viewer believe they were watching behind-the-scenes footage, only to reveal that the 'behind the scenes' was the performance itself. Listen for the West African vocal sample by South African singer Letta Mbulu in the introduction, which gives the track a texture nothing else on Bad has.
Sources
Bad album credits, Epic Records, 1987
Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story, J. Randy Taraborrelli, 2009
Short Films, Not Videos
Michael insisted on calling his music videos 'short films,' and the distinction was not vanity. His Thriller video ran fourteen minutes and was directed by John Landis, who had just made An American Werewolf in London. The Bad video was directed by Martin Scorsese, with a budget of $2.2 million. By the time he made Scream with Janet in 1995, the budget had reached $7 million.
Sources
Guinness World Records, most expensive music videos
John Landis, interview with Empire magazine, 2009
TAP TO REVEAL: How did Michael fund the Thriller video when his label refused to pay?
The Directors
Michael recruited filmmakers at the peak of their careers: John Landis for Thriller, Martin Scorsese for Bad, Spike Lee for They Don't Care About Us, Stan Winston for Ghosts. Each director has described working with a man who storyboarded every sequence, approved every camera angle, and would reshoot entire scenes if the lighting was wrong. Michael was not hiring directors to interpret his music. He was hiring technicians to execute his vision.
Sources
MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson, Steve Knopper, 2015
Spike Lee, interview on the making of They Don't Care About Us, 1996
The Short Films
Little Susie, Michael Jackson (1995)
From HIStory, a track that sounds less like a pop song and more like a film score. Michael tells the story of a neglected girl over a full orchestral arrangement that builds from music-box delicacy to cinematic grandeur. No drums, no funk, no groove. Just narrative and strings, proof that Michael's visual imagination did not need a camera to create a movie.
Little Susie, Michael Jackson (1995)
The lyrics tell a complete story with the specificity of a screenplay: a girl found at the bottom of stairs, neighbors who looked away, a life that ended without anyone noticing. The arrangement mirrors the narrative arc, starting small and building to an orchestral climax. It is the closest Michael ever came to composing a short film using only sound.
Which legendary film director directed the 'Bad' music video?
Michael made the music. He made the videos. He made the dances. But after his death, the people who controlled his vault made something else: albums from recordings he never finished, sparking a debate that has not ended.
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