Micheal and Janet Jackson - Scream

Video directed by: Mark Romanek

Micheal and Janet Jacksons music video 'Scream' has become a great success, winning awards for best dance video, best choreography, best art-directed and also won a Grammy for the best music video - it also appeared in the Guinness world records for being the most expensive music video ever made costing $7 million! The idea behind 'Scream' was Jackson's retaliation to the overwhelming bad press he was getting at the time, his younger sister Janet was in full support of her brother and the two wrote the song together. 

The highly sci-fi themed video is set on a futuristic space ship, with the feeling of wanting to get away from the media and to just be left alone in the different 'fun' rooms that we see inside the space ship. The black and white (almost silver) tone also adds to the sci-fi effect, but could also have been used to create a sense of distancing themselves further from the world. Like many Jackson videos, there are many shots of dancing and dynamic movements, the two are wearing very tight, shiny leather costumes - and strangely enough the hair and make up are very similar on the siblings sometimes making it hard to tell the difference, this technique may have been used to show the closeness between them, and again to add to the overall sci-fi feel.

Aggression seems to be a cohesive theme throughout the video - guitars, mirrors and vases are getting smashed, the two are almost singing through gritted teeth and we see Janet Jackson flash the middle finger. Aggression is an unusual thing to see from either of them, however, this does reflect the whole meaning behind the song. I think this whole video is visually beautiful, everything comes nicely together to create a professional dynamic feel. 

Cinematography is interesting throughout this video, there are a variation of camera angles and techniques that help create the futuristic sense, focus is always very sharp, which makes it very 'in your face'. At one point micheal Jacksons face rotates 360 degrees when he sings - this could portray him 'going out of his mind' with the media. Close -ups, long shots, high angles and low angles are used - these camera angles change quite quickly, scene by scene which makes the pace very fast and visual. 

The visual effects are very important throughout this video, everything seems very angular, crisp and dynamic - making it seem very classy. We've already established that it is shot inside a spaceship but to emphases this, effects were used to show them dancing on the walls and ceilings and sometimes floating in mid air, although using these techniques could be seen as quite risky, with the chance of it looking abit tacky, I think it is pulled of perfectly in this video with the right balance of editing and cinematography. The editing intensifies imagery in dance routines.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals are mainly evident once you know the reason behind the song - however, we can obviously see that 'stop pressuring me' and 'makes me want to scream' are visual on screen because the two look as though they mean what they are saying through facial expressions, actions and lyrics. There is also a relationship between the music and the visuals, during the very fast paced music we see very energetic performances, the same concept applies for when there is slower music when it is pretty much stillness and Micheal is meditating. Also when there is a scream or a smash, we see this visually.

We do not see much intertextuality in Scream as is it is a very unique idea, however there are references to Andy Warhol's self portrait and other artists work. But mainly we see a great deal of Japanese drawings in the back ground - there is also a Japanese character that i thought is meant to resemble Micheal.

The Japanese drawings may also be a technique of creating a futuristic feel.

Like all of Jacksons videos, performance is key - most of his career is formed around his ability to be an incredible performer, meaning his music videos are very important for him. However there is also concept behind this video, like i have already explained - it is his backlash to the media for making up stories and portraying him in a bad light. So although the video is mainly aimed at fans (like most music videos) it is also intended for the media to see.