This week on ‘The Making of…’: Behind the scenes of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ How best to describe the masterpiece than … in Pictures. See below few of the Making of Thriller shots. Thriller was directed by John Landis, has a running time of 13:43 minutes and won Best Video at the 1985 Grammy Award and won 3 MTV awards back in 1984 with Best Overall Performance in a Video, Best Choreography and Viewer’s choice Award.
The music video was filmed at the Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles and the Zombie dance segment at the junction of Union Pacific Avenue and South Calzona Street in East Los Angeles and the final house scene in the Angeleno Heights neighborhood at 1345 Carroll Avenue.
When Michael Jackson made the music video for “Thriller” in 1983, he was the biggest star in the world. In a book published by Glitterati Inc., “Michael Jackson: The Making of ‘Thriller’ 4 Days/1983,” photographer Douglas Kirkland chronicles the making of the groundbreaking film.
The video, a 14 minute narrative, went well beyond the usual 3-minute promotional clip. Michael worked with A-list Hollywood talent, including director John Landis and makeup artist Rick Baker. Playboy model Ola Ray played his love interest. the video cost $500,000 which was enormous at the time.
Kirkland who had photographed Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Charlie Chaplin remembers being “somewhat intimidated” by Michael at first. “He already had so much myth surrounding him […] everything about him made me think that he was a gentle person”.
Baker (left) was already famed for his work on Landis’ film “An American Werewolf in London”. He was initially reluctant to take the “Thriller” job: “It’s like being a dentist in a way […] they have to sit still in a chair for hours while you work on them. It’s uncomfortable.”
There are 2 parts to the video: In part of it, Michael plays a werewolf in a 1950s movie. Then, this switches to present day with Michael watching the movie with Ola. When they leave the Theatre, they’re attacked by Zombies which Michael turns out to be one of them too!
Baker didn’t have much time for others on the film. The dancers weren’t cast immediately so Baker kept their zombie makeup fairly simple. “We’d only have three days from meeting the dancers to finishing their faces” But Michael was well cared-for. In this photo Michael is holding his pet Muscles.
Michael Jackson was unfazed by the process. About the only thing he didn’t like were the painful yellow contact lenses he had to wear for some scenes. Well, and one other thing Baker said: the behind-the-scenes footage Landis shot. “Michael was so nervous that, as soon as the cameras came in, he ran off and hid in the bathroom”
Landis directs Michael during a scene. Michael was as brilliant a dancer as he was a singer, and cinematographer Robert Paynter was hugely impressed: “Thriller was the only time I worked with someone who made me want to write down my thoughts about him and the effect he had on me”. The video was choreographed by the Tony Award-winning Michael Peters who had also done “Beat It”.
Kirkland took the photographs for Life magazine. He shot most of the pictures with a long lens, keeping his distance from the filming. Michael was at his best just before a take, Kirkland recalls: “He projected his glorious smile which could warm anybody up. That was Michael being Michael, and that’s when I made my best pictures.”
When it finally released on December 2. 1983, “Thriller” was an event on itself! MTV trumpeted its arrival with endless promotion and aired it twice an hour. Even the making-of documentary earned heavy aurplay on the 2-year-old video network. A videocassette of “Thriller” and other Michael work sold 9 million copies! Years later, “Thriller” became the first music video selected for the National Film Registry! It’s often considered the greatest music video of all the time!
SOURCE: CNN
