I remember watching Michael Jackson’s music videos when I was 4 or 5 years old; imitating his dance moves and lip syncing to his music videos. I believe Michael Jackson started the whole music video business. If you look at it, “Thriller”, “Bad”… they were all ahead of their time in terms of the music videos that were done in the 80’s.
I watched “This is It” on its opening day in Singapore on the 29th of October and it showed the other side of Michael Jackson; the persona that happened behind the cameras, the side nobody saw or knew. Especially late in his career, when it was fraught with child-sex allegations, countless plastic surgeries and apparent emotional and mental instability. This documentary showed how down-to-earth he was. It also showed how much of a musical genius this man was. Cuing almost every “attack” in the music. Arranging and planning the score to be used in the performance. I quote him during his rehearsal to Kenny Ortega. “I’ll feel it… I’ll feel it…”, when he was asked how he will know when to start the song when his back was facing the big screen. His dancing, even at the age of 50 and almost twice the age of most of his back-up dancers, was effortless. It seemed some of the backup dancers themselves had difficulty keeping up with this Peter Pan.
I saw him as “Mr Nice Guy” so I guess it’s no wonder the media and people in general managed to take advantage of him.
I’ve seen an articles on how people are benefitting from his untimely demise, This is It: New Michael Jackson Film Worth the Hype?
Also another aspect is the use of social media in the build up to this documentary, in Facebook, Twitter and the website. In this example of social media it was a fully fan driven affair. A perfect example of a many to many conversation. And if you are wondering about Return On Investment (ROI), get this… a whopping US$ 2.4 million on the opening night in the US.
A fitting end for a great and misunderstood superstar…