The original cut of the biopic Michael Jackson, played by Giuliano Vardi, depicts Michael Jackson’s rise from childhood singing with his brothers as the “Jackson 5” to global mega-stardom (played by his nephew Jaafar Jackson), and the King of Pop’s packed-out Wembley Stadium in London on his “Bad” world tour, reaching the four-hour mark.
As previously reported, the child abuse accusations were removed from the film after lawyers for Jackson’s estate, who served as producers, discovered a clause in the settlement with one of Jackson’s accusers, Jordan Chandler, that prohibited Jackson from being depicted or mentioned in any film. Therefore, “Michael” had to be recut.
Enter John Ottman, producer Graham King’s trusted collaborator and Bohemian Rhapsody editor. (Editors Tom Cross and Conrad Buff had worked on an earlier version, but Ottman brought in editor Harry Yun to help with the workload.
The editor had only intended to attend production for a few weeks to resolve the many challenges facing the film, but in order to complete a project that required a complete overhaul. “That’s when the change happened,” he says. “We ended up having to recut the entire movie.”
Ottman, who has an “editor” credit on the film, explains, “During that time, I focused on injecting the intimacy that was needed into Michael’s creative process, as well as injecting more humor and energy. Graham was really responsive to my changes, such as how I removed 25 minutes of voiceover so the audience could be more involved in Michael’s childhood.”
Director Ottman, who watched the full four-hour version of the film, focused on making the early storyline more concise to explain why Michael was so desperate to break free from his father’s control. He also focused on Michael’s creative artistry and sought to really understand what was inside his head.
“I filmed all the scenes where he messed with the music,” Ottman says. “There’s a little montage of him snapping his fingers and when he’s at the bulletin board in the studio[trying to write a song].”
Ottoman also wanted to further enhance the element of solitude. In the childhood scenes, young Michael grows up without any real friends, and as he becomes famous, he begins to adopt animals, including the chimpanzee Bubbles, a llama, and a pet snake. “I hope people understand the fact that those (animals) were his true friends,” Ottman says.
Ottman and King usually see eye to eye, but they differed on the narration sequence. Initially, Jaafar spoke as an older Michael, interspersed with clips from his childhood. “You were in the scene and you weren’t experiencing that ride. Recovering those scenes in real time was one of my big accomplishments,” Ottman says, explaining that focusing on young Michael helped ground the emotion. “That feeling and warmth that you have for him really transfers into the future of an older Michael Jackson.”
Elsewhere, Ottman looked for moments where he could “unearth as much humor as possible.” They included moments like when young Michael couldn’t keep his feet still in the recording studio, when older Michael saw a neighbor passing by while walking down the street with his pet llama, or when Michael cracked a Prince joke. According to Ottman, those moments “not only helped us love the characters, but also helped the audience have a good time.”
Ottman also borrowed several shots from later in the original cut to blend the scenes together seamlessly. For example, when Bill Bray (Kaelynn Darrell Jones) is hired as Michael’s head of security, Ottman says, “In the next scene, they’re performing at this county fair, and Bill is nowhere to be seen. Luckily, he’s sitting near the Ferris wheel at Neverland Ranch later in the movie, so we just used that shot.”
The only scene that kept Ottoman up at night was the “bad” concert scene that ends the film. At this point, Michael had managed to break free of his father’s control and was touring solo. Ottman calls it a “mini Live Aid” after the iconic Queen concert sequence in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The scene needed to be “kick-ass” and character-driven, and also needed to celebrate Jackson’s release.
“In films like this, when the film’s narrative storyline stops for a sequence, the sequence tends to disappear,” Ottman says.
It was a conscious choice to end the movie on a “bad” note. By teasing the performance at the beginning of the film, Ottman says, “We’re telling the audience that we’re going to come back to this, and when we do, it’s going to be even more fulfilling.”
Watching the footage, it was clear that Jaafar Jackson’s performance brought the scene to life. “Jaafar gave me a lot of lightning moments,” he says. “My mission is to bring it all to the screen.” To highlight Jaafar’s greatness, Ottman favored close-ups to emphasize his emotions and the way Michael sings the lyrics, and used wide shots to capture dance moves and atmosphere.
The highlight of editing this film for Ottoman was watching Jaafar Jackson and Vardi’s performances. “I’m witnessing the beginnings of two great careers,” he says. “I was there when it happened.”
