Director of Michael Jackson's 'This is It' says singer was ready to triumph in London

Arabian Knight

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Director of Michael Jackson's 'This is It' says singer was ready to triumph in London

"Michael Jackson's This Is It" was not supposed to be it.

"I am sorry there had to be a movie," says Kenny Ortega of his latest feature-length film. "This is not the way I wanted to tell this story."

But death brings incontrovertible finality, even for a global icon like Jackson. Whatever it says on the contracts, whatever the desires of the nervous executives controlling the budgets, whatever the desires of the loyal fans, all further live appearances get canceled. Only recorded images remain.

And from the moment on June 25 when Jackson was pronounced dead in Los Angeles -- rendering moot the final preparations for the London series of Jackson comeback concerts Ortega was directing -- this was a film that Ortega, who owes Jackson a good hunk of his career (he directed Jackson's concert tours in the '90s) and who loved him from the bottom of his heart, had no choice but to make.

For one thing, there were at least three sources of footage from the rehearsals for these concerts, slated to begin in July.

The first was from a two-camera crew that originally was creating an archival record of the process for Jackson's personal use. "Michael documented everything," Ortega says. "The way we started constructing this show was by looking at his old documentary footage." The second was the interactive, 3-D films that had already been made by Jackson and Ortega, and that were intended to be shown on the massive high-definition screen planned for the O2 arena. The third was material shot by a separate crew that was filming documentary-style footage -- interviews and the like -- that would have been an addendum to the likely movie version of the live Jackson London concerts, had they gone well.

Had they gone at all.

So there was footage. There was, demonstrably, massive public demand -- there are well-considered predictions that "This Is It," which opens in theaters the evening of Oct. 27and is slated for a two-week limited run, will likely have the most lucrative opening of any movie in history. There were business interests from those (most notably the concert promoter, AEG Live) looking to recoup some of their massive costs for the aborted concerts. And there was a desire by the Jackson estate to get such a film made, thus benefiting Jackson's children, among others. The result was a reported $60 million deal between the Jackson estate, AEG Live and Sony Pictures, the company making the movie and the recipient of all of that footage. The footage is being closely guarded to stoke interest in the film. Only the briefest of clips have been released.

Sony wanted Ortega at the creative helm.

"I didn't raise my hand to make this film," says Ortega in a Chicago hotel room on Friday. "I wouldn't have come up with this idea even. The idea of creating a film out of these remnants came from the estate. I said no. No thank you. I can't. I'm too emotional. It's too soon."

But it quickly dawned on Ortega that the movie was going to be made with or without him. After all, he didn't own the footage or control where it went or how it was shaped.

"This is sacred documentation of Michael Jackson's last theatrical endeavor," Ortega says. "I am in it. And to have put that in the hands of someone else, however fine and sensitive a filmmaker, would have been irresponsible."

And so Ortega made the decision to do the film and use it as a tool to pay tribute to Jackson and to show the world what those concerts would have looked like had they been completed. "We have taken these remnants, some of which are better than others, and created a mosaic that will show what Michael was trying to accomplish."

And what was that? Ortega says Jackson's rationale for the concerts was a mix of a desire to give something back to his fans, to bring attention to the various environmental and peacekeeping causes that Jackson cherished, to get back in the live game after a decade-long absence, and, most of all, a wish to show his beloved children what their dad really did for a living.

Thus, the narrative arc of the movie is a replication of what would have been the narrative arc of the concert. Songs appear in the same order. Ortega says Jackson had rehearsed almost everything in the show. The brief clips made available suggest he was still very much performance-capable and wholly recognizable as the iconic performer ticket-buyers were hoping to see.

"We were just a couple of numbers away," Ortega says. "We were ready for Michael to step into 'Dirty Diana.' He'd already been part of the conceptualization of the number. On the afternoon of the day he died, he was going to step into the number. And then we still had to do the 'We are the World' and the 'Heal the World' sequence. We had the skeleton, but we were going to put those together in London because there were children's choirs involved." Other than that, Ortega says, Jackson had rehearsed everything and can now be seen doing so.

The film is unlikely to reveal much about Jackson's health or his state of mind, and it contains no sops to his detractors. For one thing, Sony's deal with the estate specifically prohibits footage that portrays Jackson in a negative light. But deal or no deal, Ortega has no interest in any such footage. "Michael was one of the best people I have ever met," Ortega says. "He was innocent, but not naive. And he had been put through hell. ... When Michael Jackson invites you in, you invest yourself in taking care of him. We were the builders. He was the architect. We're tried to make a film that we think Michael would enjoy."

Then again, Ortega is not naive. He says there were days when he worried about Jackson's health. "We did not live together," Ortega says. "We did our work and we went home. I wasn't with him 24 hour a days. I would ask him if he (was) eating. There were days when I felt he wasn't getting stronger."

Asked point-blank if he was certain that Jackson would have triumphed at O2, Ortega paused for a moment, and then said that he was a nervous director and had only become truly confident at the very end of the superstar's life.

"He wasn't nervous at any point. Remember, he'd been doing this, these epics, since he was a baby. He knew life has obstacles, life has stakes. ... But that last couple of nights, he'd kicked into a new gear. He'd made us all believers."

cjones5@tribune.com


http://www.chicagotribune.com/enter...michael-jackson-1019-10oct19,0,7135420.column
 
I love Kenny. He is an amazing man that has been with Michael on tour sense the 80's, and I am so glad he compiled THIS IS IT.
 
It's a shame that the entire set list wasn't rehearsed. It would have been nice to see Dirty Diana as well as the others. I was hoping to see a full dress rehearsal uncut on the DVD…
 
omg MJ and childrens choir.. that would have been beautiful :cry:
 
It's always a pleasure to hear/see Kenny speaking. he's such a sweet person! I'm glad Michael had him in his life, because he really cherishes every single moment they spent together and keeps spreading Michael's mesage. I'm following him on twitter & his tweets are so nice, positive and filled with love.
 
but didn't kenny hand-feed michael? according to randy philips... surely this is a sign of a weak man...come on think about it - handfeeding a 50 year old man???? who is about to do a 50 date stint at the 02....

not blaming kenny...but i do think they had a level of responsibility. he worked with michael on previous tours, so the comment of michael saying 'this is my dancing weight' is suspicious and cannot be proven, as it clearly wasn't his dancing weight...as on the dangerous/history tour which kenny worked on...he has a heavier frame.
 
a wish to show his beloved children what their dad really did for a living.

That's what makes this situation even worse... :( *sigh*
 
but didn't kenny hand-feed michael? according to randy philips... surely this is a sign of a weak man...come on think about it - handfeeding a 50 year old man???? who is about to do a 50 date stint at the 02....

not blaming kenny...but i do think they had a level of responsibility. he worked with michael on previous tours, so the comment of michael saying 'this is my dancing weight' is suspicious and cannot be proven, as it clearly wasn't his dancing weight...as on the dangerous/history tour which kenny worked on...he has a heavier frame.

MJ wasn't a child, he was a 50 year old man like you stated. No one needed to handfeed a grown man. From the footage, he was full of life, took charge of rehearsals...MJ wasn't incapacited.

No one can force a grown man to eat if he does not want to.

AGAIN, weighting 136 lbs DID NOT kill Michael Jackson. Diprivan did. And Murray administer the drug.
 
Lets remember that Michael was 136lbs when he died. Sure its on the light side but its still in the normal BMI.
 
:boohoo: This article was for the most part was very well written and objective. I love Kenny Ortega.

Thanks, Arabian, for posting this article.
 
MJ wasn't a child, he was a 50 year old man like you stated. No one needed to handfeed a grown man. From the footage, he was full of life, took charge of rehearsals...MJ wasn't incapacited.

No one can force a grown man to eat if he does not want to.

AGAIN, weighting 136 lbs DID NOT kill Michael Jackson. Diprivan did. And Murray administer the drug.

Thank you, my thoughts exactly.
 
The more I read about this, the more depressed I become. I don't want to drag this thread down, but I really can't get over the fact this has happened. I just can't believe this. Dammit! So Michael had not yet rehearsed Dirty Diana. He passed just before finally getting into it!

That was a nice read, but makes me miss him more... :cry:
 
:boohoo: This article was for the most part was very well written and objective. I love Kenny Ortega.

Thanks, Arabian, for posting this article.

Welcome shimar, today I realized (again) that I can never be able to get over Michael’s death, the pain never leaves… :teary_eyed:
 
I can feel the love in Kenny's words when speaking about Michael, but does that mean that dirty diana, and heal the world/we are the world will not be in the film
 
Lets remember that Michael was 136lbs when he died. Sure its on the light side but its still in the normal BMI.

I'm skeptical about this supposed 136lbs, considering he was only 120lbs when arrested in 2005 - and clearly quite chunky at that time compared to uber-thin in rehearsals.

michael_jackson_mugshot%5B1%5D.jpg
 
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I believe Michael was happy and was ready to get back on stage. I just wish he would have done things differently in trying to get to sleep. I would have never thought MJ would have died like this and so young. he was meant to be an old man but greed shorten it.
 
MJ wasn't a child, he was a 50 year old man like you stated. No one needed to handfeed a grown man. From the footage, he was full of life, took charge of rehearsals...MJ wasn't incapacited.
Exactly. Saying he had to be "hand fed" conjures up pictures of a frail old man too weak to hold his fork. It sounds like something straight out of the tabloids... a sensational claim someone dreamt up to cause a ruckus and sell newspapers. A frail old man is NOT the MJ we all see in the rehearsal footage!

No one can force a grown man to eat if he does not want to.

AGAIN, weighting 136 lbs DID NOT kill Michael Jackson. Diprivan did. And Murray administer the drug.
:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:
 
I'm skeptical about this supposed 136lbs, considering he was only 120lbs when arrested in 2005 - and clearly quite chunky at that time compared to uber-thin in rehearsals.
Do you think the coroner's office is lying? Why would they do that? Or do you just think someone got the info wrong?

I think he looked thinner in 2005 so the 136 sounds right to me.
 
:agree:I think you guys are looking at things the wrong way! We already know Mike has admitted that he didn't eat when he prepared for concerts. He may even have told them he didn't eat or they just didn't see him eat anything and so they decided to hand feed him just to get him to eat something. You guys are acting like Mike was so helpless that he wasn't ABLE to feed himself when that wansn't the case. I can see the guys sitting around eating and Mike isn't eating anything and they just say, "Here, you are going to eat something whether you want to or not!", and just puts the food up to his mouth so he would have to open it and eat it. That's my interpretation of the situation anyway. Hey, I may be wrong too, but I prefer to see it this way, with all other things considered, than the way you all are making it look. Just another perspective of the facts. y'all. :yes:
 
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