“Hold My Hand,” the first single off Michael Jackson's posthumous release, Michael (set to drop Dec. 17), is exactly what you would expect from a posthumous video by the King of Pop that has Akon in it as well.
It's sappy and sentimental, opening with fans screaming “Love you Michael” and releasing balloons into the sky. Then it segues into shots of
classic Michael Jackson clips, impersonations, and murals.
All prepared to diss the video, it wasn't until much later into the song that I realized it made me feel like crying–I missed Michael Jackson all over again.
Watch the video after the jump, and check out some other facts about the video, shot close to home:
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1. It was filmed in Tustin, in one of the two massive hangars at the Tustin Air Station.
Built to house Navy
blimps during WWII, the hangars were situated in the
largest Marine Corps helicopter base in the country, until it closed in
1999. Pearl Harbor was shot in
one, and an X-Files convention has been held in one too. According to TMZ, the shoot for the MJ/Akon music video took place in one of the hangars on Nov. 22.
2. It features 9-year-old Michael Isaac Blanks (taebo king Billy Blanks' nephew), who has been performing as “an MJ wannabe for years.” He caught the eye of This Is It director Kenny Ortega at a charity dancing event and was asked to be in the video.
3. There's a heavenly theme throughout. The hired extras for the video were bonafide MJ fans who were asked to walk
into
an open airport hangar, pitch black except for a bright light at the
end. It was supposed to symbolize “walking into the light.”
4. A casting call for the video asked for “a disabled person with no hands.” So yes, at around 2:44, there is a man with one
hand in the video.
