Thriller Video

This video was made for one of the Michel Jackson's hit singles 'Thriller' and was released in December 1983. This video was originally 13 mins long and tells a story about a young couple who face some night adventures. The video was made at the peak of a horror genre popularity, therefore attracting the audience with its short narrative story. The video contains some of the common elements and cliches of a horror genre such as the girl running through the woods alone and Werevolves. This again interested the audience at the time and cought their breath. 

The mise en scene is cleverly used in order to emphasise the horror genre, the clip features Michael turn into a werevolf at the begining, yellow eyes and rasor sharp fangs are shown to portray the creature's horrid appearance and thereore evoke fear within the audience. The costumes of zombies and the make up are used particularly well at the period in time. They make the creatures look real enough for the audience to be frightened. Furthermore Michael's costume stands out throughout the whole video as it is red. In this video context it could connotate blood and violence which may therefore suggest that he is a villain. The lighting is also dim as the scenes take place at night. The is also fog present, which is a common feature of the horror genre and gives a sence of misteriousness.

The clip contains dolly hots to the right as the couple walk through the streets ans Michael sings. This gives the audience a sence of their presense in the clip, as if they are walking along with the actors. Furthermore as the couple pass the cemetery a gravely, high pitched electronic music starts to play, often associated with the graves and zombies. Also a hand rises up from the grave in a close up shot, which creates a sense of suspence, but also keeps the audience interested. There is also a voiceover done by an old voice which states 'creatures crawling' ; the words are matched with the actions of creatures crawling out of the graves, therefore evoking fear within the audience.

Michael then joins in to dance with the zombies, again standing out from the background in hir red outfit, which makes hi the focus. The editing suits the beats of the song as the zombies dance, alternating between the close up shots of Michael and the long shots of the goup of zombies. This makes the audience want to follow wat's going on in the video, as they dont know which edit is going to come next. However some comical elemets are present, as zombies dont normally dance around, they feast on humans, which in my opinion makes the clip look even better and interests the audience. The video also ends with the girl escaping the zombies and appears to have imagined it all as Michael offers to take her home. However he then turns to a camera and smiles evily as his eyes turn yellow. This is then made a still frame with a cackling non-diegetic laugh. This is a great ending to the clip as it creats suspence and makes the viewers wonder about the truth.

This video has made a great impact on the way other videos were made, as other artists had to compete with it on the same level. The mise en scene, special effects, sound all were used creatively and well in order to produce a succesfull music video.