James Montgomery of MTV News was just on the network talking Michael Jackson’s legacy and it struck me as particularly applicable for a film site, so I thought I’d pass along his sentiments:
The interesting thing is MTV started at the same time Michael Jackson starting going supernova…If you look at him then becoming huge, “Thriller,” Michael Jackson stopped making videos, started making movies at that point. These were big budget, big special effects, dance sequences, 10, 12, 13 minute things. “Bad” is 18 minutes long, Martin Scorsese directs it, Wesley Snipes is in it. “Black or White,” stuff with the morphing technology he used, he always appreciated the showmanship of like P.T. Barnum and the silver screen era of Hollywood. That’s what all his videos were. When Michael Jackson premiered a video, that was an event. You stayed home to watch that.
“Scream,” as far as I understand, is still, to this day, the most expensive music video ever made. I think it was budgeted at something like $7 million which today is unheard of and back then was doubly unheard of. The special effects he laid in, huge event with his sister. He really got it. He knew that videos were a way to promote himself and make this brand and make him this international superstar. We were just lucky to be along for the ride. It’s pretty amazing.