"Oddly enough, I met Michael on two occasions before we photographed him for the holograms.
Once at a camera show in Pasadena California, I have always been interested in stereo photography so I was on the lookout for cameras and stereo photos. I was browsing through boxes of old Viewmaster reels at someones table and the fellow next to me looked rather odd. He was wearing a black hat and had a mask over his nose and mouth. The mask made of pleated gray cloth and was not a typical surgical or dust mask. The fellow had a huge silver belt buckle. Michael. I happened to know he was interested in 3d so I struck up a conversation about viewmaster reels and what he was looking for. He said anything Disney or old TV shows. I found a set of Rin-Tin-Tin and some Roy Rogers reels and handed them to him. He thanked me. After some conversation That I don't remember, I went on to look at other things.
The second time, a magician friend of Michael's contacted ADD to look into some hologram project he had in mind that now escapes my memory. We collected a number of holograms and visited Michaels house in Encino or some such place in the Valley. Michael welcomed us graciously and led us to a room where we could set up some holograms. There was not a lot of room available with all the other stuff he had. I vaguely remember a large Disney themed, maybe Snow White, Diorama covered with a plastic dome. Nothing came of that visit but it was fun to visit his home. I think Kevin Rankin and Chris Outwater was in on the visit as well.
A few years later, Judith Roberts contacted us with a project to create a hologram for a perfume bottle. After some complex contract negotiations we scheduled a shoot at a neighbors photo studio on Stagg street in Van Nuys. I believe we rented a big motor home to park outside the studio to serve as a dressing room. When he arrived he came with an entourage of maybe 10 to 12 extra people. Some of which had an obvious function, Others just got in the way. We had hired a DP to help with the lighting.
Although only an hour was scheduled for the shoot, we were ready to shoot more film that could be used for our holodisk as well as large format holograms. I brought along a number of 3d cameras, viewmaster reels and fun holograms to aid in convincing Michael to stay to shoot for more hologram formats.
While we were setting up for the first shoot I took Michael aside and started talking about general 3d imaging and the other hologram formats. I also showed him the cameras from my collection. After the first shoot he decided to stay longer to allow shooting more film. Some of his group tried to convince him that they had to leave but Michael got rather terse with them and insisted that he would stay.
We ended up shooting for about four hours and got some great footage for all three formats which included small format sheared footage for embossing, large format, non-sheared and holodisk footage from above.
The contract stipulated that if Michael's company decided they, could retain ALL materials from the shoot and all hologram copies. Unfortunately they did ask for all the materials and we complied.
The holodisks would have been particularly cool. I asked Michael to do some of his dance moves on the turntable then freeze in the same position between moves. He asked ME to select some music to dance to. I was terrified as I looked at a wall rack of cassette tapes next to the stereo. I'm going to pick music for Michael Jackson! My eye was drawn to Prince, the first cut on the first side was "When Doves Cry", I asked if that was OK and he said that would be great.
The music played and Michael warmed up on the turntable getting used to the motion. Everyone in the room was transfixed. Up to this moment they understood that Michael Jackson was in the room, but when he danced, myth and reality merged, we KNEW he was really there!"
Craig Newswanger
