They Don't Care About Us - Camera Angles & Oddities

A suspicious aspect of the This Is It film was that for filming that was meant to be for "archival" purposes only, or perhaps some "filler" behind the scenes footage for a concert tour DVD, there were not only quite a few cameras shooting from different angles and distances, but also zooming and panning techniques as if the footage was shot purposely to be seen by audiences at a later date. Now I've looked at past footage of other rehearsals from other tours, and you do see multiple angles, but often the footage looks very raw, uncentered, dark, and not "polished" like it does with This Is It. (Of course HD cameras helped in This Is It.).

First you have a close up view of MJ to his left side. In this shot it's almost as if he's looking at the camera.



















Then you have various angles at different distances and positioned in various places:





















You have cameras focusing on the musicians and dancers. While examining the various angles, I also found some oddities in some of the scenes. It may be worth some additional looks into the footage of some of the songs to rediscover and analyze things that we may have overlooked. The camera views change quickly, so it is easy to not see something unless you pause the footage frequently.

For example, what are those odd facial images on one of the dancer's shirts?
























There is also an image of a strange "helmeted" and cloaked figure standing at the side of the stage. If you watch the video it is a person who moves.





















Another interesting aspect of this during the "greatest demonstration of our freedom" part of the clip, MJ points at the sky, and then it could be interpreted that both him and Orianthi are symbolically "giving the finger" to someone...the media perhaps? There is a sense of "defiance" in this part of the clip.




















At about this time, the background light looks very much like a clock. Coincidence and illusion, perhaps...but I thought it was interesting that the "time" appears to be around 12:21, which is the same time the 911 call was made from MJ's house.
















In the end, this performance had to have held significance..from the defiant gestures, to the big grins. Below is the video from which all of these above stills were drawn from..enjoy..!