How is the artist represented?
Michael Jackson is represented as a number of different supernatural creatures during the music video and this is used to illustrate how during the time period lots of horror/thriller films had been released including ‘The Shining’, ‘The Poltergeist’ and ‘Friday 13th’. This representation of the artist completely showed a alternative point of view to his previous work as one of ‘The Jackson 5’.
Is this similar across the videos by the artist?
Differently, ‘Thriller’ shows a unique change to Michael Jacksons previous videos and illustrated his diversity when performing in his music videos. ‘Thriller’ is completely contrasted to his previous videos such as with his siblings (in ‘The Jackson 5’), ‘ABC’, ‘I Want You Back’, and music videos he did as a solo artist such as ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’. In doing this Jackson gained a wide spread audience and his hit ‘Thriller’ just made him more popular globally.
What relationships exists between images and lyrics in the chosen video?
The lyrics and images are closely related in the video 'Thriller' lyrics such as 'But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind' is thus emphasised by the video of how Michael Jackson and his girlfriend are being persued by zombies. Furthermore, this is linked to images in the video and lyrics with the repetition of 'Thriller' as in the 1980's this video would have been seen as a horror short film and was meant to scare the audience.
What relationship exists between the music and images?
The background base is very low and can illustrate the scared feelings the characters are supposed to portray and is added to when in moments during the video - approximately 11 minutes into the video - where the newly found zombie Michael Jackson is chasing his girlfriend and the lyrics have stopped the backing music is used to make the audience feel in suspence of what is happening to the girl and emphasises this with the use of images.
Are there any inter-textual references to other media forms?
In the music video 'Thriller' there is a inter-textual reference to the 1981 film 'An American Werewolf in London' as in the beginning of the scene we see a boy transform into a werewolf and persue his girlfriend and thus attacking her. Moreover, the use of a 'sprechgesang' (a musical term used to refer to an expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking) which can be said to be made famous by Vincent Price. Furthermore, the image of Palace Thriller is used in the video which was rather famous in the 1980's and was made more so by Michael Jackson's music video.
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