What is the best music video of all time? Is it Peter Gabriel – ‘Sledgehammer’? Is it Bag Raiders – ‘Fun Punch’? Is it Joywave – ‘Somebody New’? Is it, ahem, Alex Gaudino – ‘Destination Calabria’? No, it is Michael Jackson – ‘Thriller’, and everybody knows this.
At the time (1983), nobody had really done anything like Jacko – this was a 14-minute music video for a six-minute song. Overkill? Yes, maybe. Worth the overkill? Oh, 100%.
Michael had long wanted to go above and beyond with a music video, and he thought the horror-themed ‘Thriller’ would work perfectly – so he tapped up John Landis, whose film An American Werewolf In London he’d loved, and the rest is history.
Top song, topper video – popular culture forever changed. And now we’re getting the chance to see it in a whole new light, or more specifically, dimension. Even more specifically: the third one.
Landis has been hard at work painstakingly converting the the 2D film into 3D, as well as updating the sound to 5.7, 7.1 and Atmos standards, whatever the hell that means (sounds fancy though, woooo). And now it’s ready, so you better watch it, busto.
John Landis said,
“I am so happy to have had the chance not only to restore but enhance Michael Jackson’s Thriller! We took full advantage of the remarkable advances in technology to add new dimensions to both the visual and the audio bringing it to a whole new level.
“Even though Thriller was shot traditionally, I was able to use the 3-D creatively. Let me just warn you, there is a rather shocking surprise in there!”
The first showing will be at this year’s Venice Film Festival where it will be shown alongside ‘The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller’, an accompanying feature that originally went out with the video release in 1983, although this’ll be the first time it’s been shown in a theatre.
There’s no concrete dates set for a worldwide release, but I’d expect to see it very soon over here if it goes down well. If you’re not too scared to go and see it, that is – such a baby, you are.
(Images: mjthriller.net)
