For the upcoming 40th anniversary of the release of the Thriller short film, I wanted to go back and revisit the Making Of Thriller video.
Released on VHS in the 80's, the Making Of Thriller became the biggest selling VHS of the 1980's which in no small way was due to the massive success of the Thriller album.
Forty years later, Thriller is still the biggest selling album of all time with 70+ million units sold.
While the only copies currently available of the Making Of Thriller are in Standard Definition, the Thriller and Beat It music videos have now been released in 4k by the Jackson Estate.
With this content I decided to replace the Thriller short film and Beat It music video in the Making Of Thriller with HD versions that I also cropped to 16:9 widescreen.
Yes, I know cropping 4k 4:3 video into HD 16:9 will upset the purists, but I really don't care and doing this creates a nice transition between the music videos and the original behind the scenes footage. It also makes Thriller and Beat It feel more theatrical.
For the original behind the scenes footage I tried using A.I. upscaling to 1080p, which has not improved the material much as the SD source is such poor quality by today's standards. However, I did have more success upscaling the videos for Can You Feel It and Billie Jean (Mowtown 25) which are also included in the Making Of Thriller.
While doing this upscaling work for the music videos, I also decided to include more of those videos so they each play a little longer than in the original Making Of Thriller. The result is now a total of over 1 hour for the documentary including music videos.
And while I was at it, I also replaced the footage from American Werewolf In London with HD footage, as this movie is discussed by Jackson and director, John Landis.
Contact us to watch the Making Of Thriller.