Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us - Directors Commentary

Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us - Audience Feedback

Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us (COMPLETED MUSIC VIDEO)

Question 2

The effectiveness of our main product relates to our magazine advert and CD cover as the power of the image reflects the emotions of the song. At the start of the video, we intended to create a mysterious effect to the song by hiding the performers face and we continued to use this concept throughout our magazine advert and CD cover. Within the video we used an effect to reveal the performers face which he then emerges into the energetic performance, this is continued throughout our video as it connects to our initial idea portrayed through the song. As we had many dance scenes in the video, we decided to use the scenes where only the silhouette of the performer can be seen, as this showed the image we wanted to create of the performer, which the pose reflected the power of the song. This idea was used within the album cover, the inside and back cover, as well as the magazine advert which includes a pose of the performer with his hand clenched, held high, which reflects the power symbol, and implies, that it is actually the people who have the power to change the world. The magazine advert and CD cover helps to sell the product as the black and white effect and the silhouette adds a mysterious effect the song, so would make people want to find out what the song is about, as the images are powerful. The idea that was used for the advert of the original ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ song was different, as Michael Jackson was already classed as the best entertainer of all time, people already knew who he was, however Michael Jackson intended to use his emotion to sell his product, as opposed to previous album covers and adverts, he looks angry, which he uses costume and a background from the prison version of the video ‘They Don’t Care About Us’. As in our music video the performer wouldn’t be known to the public, the power of the image would be enough to sell the product, as this relates to the theme of the music video. The title ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ has enough impact on itself to appeal to our target audience as ‘They’ could be anyone. It’s up to the audience to decide who is ‘They’ which the video questions who is responsible for some of the issues raised. By using a silhouette, this takes away the attention from the artist, to the title of the song which is the most important technique in advertising our product. This concept links to the conspiracy theory Michael Jackson raised in his versions, as some might suggest killuminati is responsible, whereas others may believe that government is. There are many situations within the music video when the performer is not clearly visible, which suggests the same idea as the magazine poster and the album front and back cover, which the power of these connotes anger and mystery.

Question 1

In our music video, we intended to draw attention to important aspects of people’s lives, which they would usually ignore. Our music video was inspired by the original concept created from Michael Jackson’s version of ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ by shooting extreme poverty in the streets of brazil, including a black civil rights campaign ‘Olodum’ and the energy of the aggressive performance from Michael Jackson himself. Our video was also inspired by other Michael Jackson songs and videos with the same purpose, such as ‘Bad’, ‘Human Nature’ and ‘Beat It’. We intended to address the same concept in our music video by similarly using an aggressive theme to the performance included in the singing and dancing, and using footage of former president of the United States: Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as the black civil rights movement: Martin Luther King Jr. However we also wanted to capture the attention of the audience we would most likely attract by filming homeless people, cold, and begging in the dark which relates to the intention of the video, filming the performer singing and dancing in dark scenes around the Castlefield area located in Manchester, and shooting in remote areas which like the black and white effect in our video, connotes a dark and dull theme to the video. The originality of our music video comes from the dance style and the performance, as the guitar solo is the most powerful part of the video as this is when the performer expresses the meaning of the song using dance moves from the original video which is also included towards the end of the song. These ideas have been adopted from other Michael Jackson music videos previously mentioned in the blog as each video has a specific dance theme related to the genre of the music video, the lyrics, and time zone as Michael Jackson has a different dance theme for each video such as the difference between the image portrayed from the dance moves from ‘Billie Jean’, to the dance moves from ‘Bad’, as the dancing in both videos was an expression of the meaning to the song. Our music video broke the usual conventions of a music video from a similar genre as rather than using imagery to portray the meaning of the song, our performance was a key source in sending the message to our viewers by limiting the effects we would add to the music video. The video also breaks the conventions as the performance enhances the narrative of the song by building up the emotions of the viewers which are expressed through the dancing scenes in the song. The overall intention of our music video production is to create a more modern outlook to the current issues often raised in today’s society as the video relates to the problems, which the video addresses who is responsible for these problems and who’s actions have impacted on the world today in a negative or positive light in terms of the situations that commonly occur in today’s world.

CD Cover Finished

Our final magazine advert had very few minor changes.

Firstly, the quote was changed because within our group we agreed a more intellectual quote would be more effective. We also changed the name of the newspaper that quoted the song because The Guardian is stereotypically read by those more intellectual people.

Secondly, we changed the stars. We created our own star using a different application and then inserted and duplicated the star in order to make the rating more obvious to the viewer. The bold yellow colour which is used to fill the star is the only bright colour on the page, and for this reason makes the stars stand out to the viewer and the colour helps to catch the corner of their eye.

Thirdly, we added a link to the official Michael Jackson website. We made this text smaller as it is less important to advertise the CD but it informs the reader that they could find out more information by visiting the website.

Finally, a slight change in the position of the parental advisory image to the bottom right hand corner. We made this change because we felt that it was still necessary to have this image on the poster so that the listeners are aware of the explicit content but it shouldn't be next to the text as it could be misleading and viewers may think that the explicit content was on the poster.

Magazine Cover One

We had two attempts at our magazine advert and decided to choose the second one.

On our first attempt, we had a basic idea of how we wanted to promote the CD release, after researching other magazine adverts first to inspire our ideas. Large and colourful images and text are what catches the viewers attention. For us to do this and also make it fit in with the video and CD cover, we chose to use a greyscale image and white text because the white text on a dull background also makes the text stand out and catches the viewers attention. All the text on the poster is white in particular, and the stars are 'gold'. The white background on the stars is an image found off a search engine, which we inserted onto the advert. We agreed we needed to add a rating to the CD because this would help to promote it and thought rather than more text informing the reader, an image would be more appealing. Although in this case, this particular image doesn't suit the rest of the advert and therefore we changed it to make it look better and more eye-catching on our final advert.

We chose to title the advert 'M.Jackson' in a signature font to give the impression that Michael Jackson himself had signed the poster. This wasn't the main focus of the advert and therefore the font size used was relatively small.

We used Trebuchet MS for the title: 'They Don't Care About Us' and we used TW Cen MT for the title: 'CD OUT NOW' and bolded the font to make it stand out to the viewer.

We also used TW Cen MT for the quote and for the iTunes advertisement because of continuity. This particular font we felt looked professional.

By adding a rating of five stars, this appeals to the viewers over a two star rating because people are more likely to choose to listen to songs with a higher rating as they are enjoyed by a larger number and wider range of listeners.

It was necessary to inform the listeners that some of the content of the CD is explicit and therefore parental advisory should be taken into consideration.

The image we chose to use is of lucas during one of our filming shots which we also used in our music video. This particular image conveys with the idea of disguising the performer and keeping his identity a mystery. The street light in the top right hand corner of the poster brightens up the advert and also stands out on the dark background. Some may see this as Michael Jackson under a different light. This background image is effective in many ways. One of the ways in which it is effective is because Lucas is punching thin air, but you can imagine that it is Michael Jackson punching in anger.

Magazine Research

The three poster selected represent the different format in which posters can be advertised. They used different styles of font and imagery to promote the single. The “Leona Lewis” advert use large font sizes and an image of her as it focus points. On the right hand side is her posing as on the other side is large font “LEONA LEWIS”. The poster puts across a simple soft theme by using a beach and a clam blue sea. The beech represent then calm vibe we get as we associate the beach with relaxing peaceful time. So by using that as a back ground implies that the song has a soft element to it. They chose to put the release date at the bottom in medium font size plus other details about the single. The advert is very simple with not a lot of writing or images so that focus is not drawn away from their aim.

However the “La Roux” advert has lot more of writing in comparison to “Leona Lewis”. The writing in the advert has uses quote from various sources to promote the single. They use well known sources as it raises the profile of the artist. It is a simple advert as it only has one image with writing on the right hand side. This large image allows the audience to see who the artist is and attracting more fans that didn’t know her by name but was familiar with her face. The piece is promotional as it states the different songs provided giving the reader more to go off.

This advert has also got more detail for the reader, providing them with information on the release date and places here it can be purchased. This gives the reader more of an idea where they can get it and how making it that much easier for the reader. However if you notice in this one it doesn’t not have any images or a picture of the artist. I think it is because they are aim at their fans that are familiar with their name. Their showings they are not bothered about appealing to a boarder audience by not using their artist as a selling point. Their choices of colours are very vibrant and bright making up for the absent images drowning the audience in to reading it. The artist name was placed in the centre of the advert with a flash of bright orange behind.

CD Cover

CD Inside Back Cover

Another of our ideas was to organize the images in an unorganized way as we thought this would be more eye catching. The images appear more appealing when they are tilted and it means the viewer has to focus and possibly tilt their head to get a clear view of the image. In this particular case, the images are too large and they overlap too much which results in very little of one of the images being exposed.

CD Cover Attempts

CD Inside Front Cover
First Attempt

Our first idea for the inside of our CD cover was to collect images of Lucas dancing, and collaborate these to look like professional photographs. As a group we thought improvements could be made, but before this, we gathered several students and asked for their feedback. Overall, the results were that the white border was too thick and therefore the white was more eye catching than the images.

As a group, we considered this feedback and also criticised our own work. We evaluated that six images in such a small space is not as effective as fewer, larger images would be. By looking closely at the first finished piece, we noticed that some of the white borders were uneven and some images were slightly larger. The reptitiveness of the carefully aligned images was repetitive and we agreed that the viewers may find this boring.


Second Attempt


After considering the criticism from ourselves and others, we decided to continue with the idea of capturing the dance images and still tried to use images which disguised Lucas as much as possible to ensure the performer remained mysterious.

We experimented with a black border on the photos but after adding this effect to all the images, we realised it made the cover look dull and boring. We wanted this inside to be just as eye-catching as the front cover and this didn't work. Also, we layered the images to remove the repetitive effect from our previous attempt, and resized some of the images so they size of each image was varied, but this meant that some of the images were overpowering others.

CD Research

Before starting to produce the cd cover, we firstly researched other cd cover's which helped to inspire us. We looked at hundreds of different cd covers, including Michael Jackson album covers, using the search engine, Google.

Michael Buble CD Cover

The white background on this CD cover works well with the image because it makes the artist stand out as he is wearing a black suit and tie.

The black, white and grey effect gives the impression of the 1950s before colour images were introduced and the contrast of these colours works well together.

Although the CD cover is simple and very basic, it is very effective. It still informs the viewer of the album title, artist's name and a picture of the artist so you can put a face to a name.

Elton John CD Cover
This CD cover also used a white background and the same black font for the album title and artist name. The black font stands out on the white background and to emphasize the artist's name, a larger font has been used.
The main focus of the cover is the collage of images of the artist over many years. The largest image being him most recently. This allows the viewer to recognize that the artist has been around for a while and is continuing to still do well.

Michael Jackson CD Cover

Again, this CD cover also uses a white background and black text. Although, the artist's name is on an angle, rather than the usual horizontal lining of the text, they have rotated it so it is read vertically down the right hand side. This means the reader has to look longer at the image as the artist's name isn't as clear, although a large, bold text is still used.

The black clothing the artist is wearing also makes him stand out on the white background. This image takes up two thirds of the CD cover and therefore is the main focus expected to grab the viewers attention.

The title of the album cover is in red to make it stand out and is in a spray paint font to give the impression that he is 'bad' to be spray painting as it is seen as wrong.