“When I heard the music of the album ‘Thriller’ for the first time, I was completely taken aback. It was a never-before-heard sound and I had to really think hard and dig deep to come up with a concept that was as unique and path-breaking for its music-videos” revealed Steve Barron, director of several internationally-acclaimed music-videos like ‘Thriller’, ‘Billie Jean’ (both for Michael Jackson), ‘Money for Nothing’ for Dire Straits and ‘Take on Me’ for A-HA, in last week’s master-class with the students of Whistling Woods International.

His opening salvo to the students was “You guys are so lucky to have all this infrastructure, these facilities and so much attention been paid to your film education. I learnt whatever I could from being on the set starting out from a clapper-boy. It took me more than a decade to reach a stage where I was confident of my skills. I am confident that I would’ve got there far quicker had I had such world-class film education available to me when I was starting out. You MUST utilise each and every resource provided to you here to the fullest to shape your media-career”

In a 2-hour master-class, students viewed, analysed and discussed in detail the concepts, making, creative and technical process behind the making of music-videos Thriller, Billie Jean, Money for Nothing and the feature film – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – all directed by Steve.

The session, moderated by the Dean of Whistling Woods International, Kurt Inderbitzin, delved deep into the business of international music-video production with specifics about budgets, production values, concepts, pace, rhythmn, casting and choreography of the videos. This session with Steve sharing his significant expertise in the subject was exceptionally enlightening to the students.