Wednesday 12 January 2011

Music Video Analysis Micheal Jackson - Thriller



Michael Jackson's Thriller is considered to one of the most revolutionary and voted most influential video ever, the 14 minute music video is credited for its fanatastic effect of merging filmaking and music. Selling 9 million units it made it in to the Guiness world records.

The video falls under the genre of horror and this is revealed clearly as soon as the title screen appears, with font colour being red to symbolise blood and slashed lettering. The opening scene shows the mise-en-scene to be realistic, dark, eerie setting with diegetic sounds of crickets. 

Micheal Jackson is dressed in his iconic costume including the white socks and rolled up trousers. The opening continues by entering some non diegetic music which isnt the actual song and we are then shown the short film before the videon even begins which is one of the reasons for video being revoloutionary, this had not been done before. We are shown a series of close ups that convey Micheals characters transformation with the mise-en-scene fitting the genre once more, dark forest surrounded by fog. Once again this was so revoloutionary as it the audience were watching a film within a film, something that defied typical conventions of a music video.

The setting changes again into deeper fog ending the short film and merging the world of the song and the narrative. The song becomes a vehicle for the video, ultimately inverting the music video. The people in the narrative join in with the song when the zombies begin to dance which is the iconic dance that people still imitate. 


Finally the video ends with actual credits once again using a convention of a film, supporting the idea of the merging of genres. 

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