The Pitch

Group 3: Amy, Paul & Lewis

The ArtistWe have chosen to use the band “Fall Out Boy”,

a US-based Pop/Punk Rock band with Emo (Emotionally Charged Hardcore Punk Rock)

influences.Fall Out Boy are famous for not taking

themselves too seriously and this is reflected in their music and videos.

The band is made up of Patrick Strump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley. It was

formed in 2001 in Wilmette Illinois and achieved mainstream success in 2005.

The Song...We chose to do Fall Out Boy’s cover of ‘Beat It’ by

Michael Jackson. We initially had trouble finding a song we could

all agree on and which was considered appropriate by Mr. Khairdean.

The fairly recent events concerning M.J. make this song choice feel appropriate, with M.J.’s

work once again in the popular consciousness. The original song is loved so why not throw in a

modern rock band to spice things up and introduce it to a new audience...

Genre...Michael Jackson’s original is a typical 80s Pop Song, and very distinctively “Michael Jackson”.

Fall Out Boy, being a rock band, modified the tempo and style of the song, but kept the theme

of the original.These differences are also clear in the videos. In

the Michael Jackson version, there is a great deal of dancing and a clear narrative, it resembles a mini-musical, a popular style of video in the 80s.

In Fall Out Boy’s version, this is mostly replaced by the band performing, as this is what fans of

rock bands want to see.Here is M.J’s Original Video. Here is F.O.B’s

Genre of the videosThe original is highly conventional Pop – MJ

is dancing and singing, often to the camera and in close up. He is brightly dressed and there is a lot of emphasis on him as a star.

The Fall Out Boy version is also very typical of its genre, rock. The band are shown

playing their instruments and are dressed in darker, more serious “emo” style clothes. The

close ups emphasise the performance of music over dancing or the artists, unlike the

MJ version.

Beat It and Music Video HistoryBeat It was the first of MJ’s big-budget “mini-

musical” style videos.Michael struggled to get the video produced, and

it eventually cost him millions of dollars to do so.It was worth it however, as Beat It is generally

recognised as one of the most significant Pop videos of all time, paving the way for the more lavish productions seen in the coming decades.

In terms of MJ specifically, Beat It became the prototype for “Thriller”, “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” which are generally recognised as

three of the best music videos ever.

Research...Each of us have posted at least 2 video analyses

onto the blog - 3 songs by Michael and 3 by Fall Out Boy (One of each from all of us).

There are also some extra analyses from when we were trying to choose an act.

We compared the images and motifs of M.J. And the band, concluding that they are very different, but

not incompatible.Their images in particular are extremely

different...We have the white gloved King of Pop and the Rock/ Punk ‘Emo’ stylings of F.O.B. We are still working on which will be the main style of our

video, though both will be involved.

Our Idea...We have chosen to borrow elements from both the original Michael Jackson video and the Fall Out Boy

Video style.Our plan is to parody the famous gang conflict in the original video by having our version of Fall Out Boy engage in a confrontation with “Michael” and

his army of dancers.The video will open with “F.O.B.” performing, and

shots of them doing so will be spliced in throughout.

This allows us to evoke both the distinctive styles of M.J. and F.O.B. In one video and still use the typical

F.O.B. video stylings.

Our Idea continued...The Fall Out Boy video contains some

elements of parody regarding MJ videos, but this is different from what we plan to do.In the FOB version, there are simply a

number of shots poking fun at (Particularly later) MJ videos, as opposed to our more

specific parody of the Beat It video.The FOB version lacks a narrative, and we felt that a video with a stronger narrative and stronger links to the original would be more

exciting for the audience.For more on this, see the Blog

There, our pitch... Now Beat it!We’ve been Sawtry Music Video Group 3.

Thanks for listening.