What This Documentary Actually Is
The 2009 documentary This Is It captures the final weeks of rehearsal for Michael Jackson's planned residency at London's O2 Arena. It was shot on digital video by Kenneth "Kenny" Ortega and others over roughly six weeks. The footage is raw, incomplete, and deeply uneven in quality. Some segments are well-lit performance rehearsal. Others are shaky, poorly exposed, and clearly meant for internal production notes rather than public viewing. The film was released posthumously and grossed over $260 million worldwide against a modest budget. It is not a polished retrospective. It is a document of a man working through pain, schedule pressure, and creative refinement on a tight timeline. If you go in expecting a traditional music documentary, you will be disappointed. It is closer to a fly-on-the-wall production diary with dance breakdowns, costume fittings, and vocal warm-ups spliced together.
Unmasking The Turbulent Backstage Of Michael Jacksons This Is It Documentary
When people search for this topic, they usually want one of three things: a reliable place to watch it, a breakdown of what actually happened behind the scenes, or raw footage from the rehearsals. I have dealt with all three over the years, and the landscape is messier than most sources admit. Here is the practical reality. The documentary is available through several legal streaming routes depending on your region. In the United States, it has rotated between Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and iTunes. Currently, it is typically available to rent or purchase on those platforms for around $3.99 to $4.99. In the UK, it often appears on Amazon Prime Video and Sky Store. In Australia, LooktoStream and Google Play carry it. The availability shifts quarterly based on licensing deals, so check just one source before assuming it is gone entirely. I recommend watching the theatrical cut first. It runs about 111 minutes and is the most coherent version. The DVD and Blu-ray releases include bonus rehearsal footage, but much of it is redundant. The real value is in the deleted rehearsal segments that show choreography changes and stage blocking adjustments not present in the final film.
What the Documentary Shows and What It Hides
The film documents the choreography development for songs like Beat It, Smooth Criminal, and You Rock My World. It shows Michael Jackson working closely with backup dancers, costumer Bob Mackie, and production designer Kenpoint. There are also glimpses of the stage design, lighting cues, and the massive video screen concept that was being built for the residency. What it does not show is the full extent of the scheduling conflicts, the last-minute cancellations, and the health concerns that were discussed privately among the crew. These details are documented in interviews with people like Kenny Ortega, who wrote about the experience in his book, and in reports from the LA County coroner's office. The documentary was released before many of those conversations became public, so it presents a sanitized version of events. One thing the film captures genuinely is Jackson's work ethic. He rehearsed for up to 16-hour days. He corrected dancers on micro-movements. He was exhausted but refused to slow down. That is the central tension the documentary reveals without explicitly stating it.
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Common Pitfalls When Researching This Material
Beginners often make the same mistakes. They assume every frame in the documentary is from the O2 rehearsals. It is not. Some footage was pulled from earlier projects, including the Blood on the Dance Floor era and the HIStory tour. The editing team blended old and new material to fill runtime gaps, which creates timeline inconsistencies that careful viewers will notice. Another mistake is treating the documentary as a complete historical record. It is not. Many rehearsal sessions were never filmed. Some key creative decisions, including the setlist and costume concepts, were discussed in meetings that had no camera present. The film shows the tip of the iceberg. I once spent a week tracking down a specific rehearsal clip that appeared in the documentary but was labeled incorrectly on several fan sites. The clip was actually from a September 22nd dress rehearsal, not a general practice session as most sources claimed. The workaround was to cross-reference the timestamp data from the original production logs with the audio cues in the footage. The production team released those logs to researchers in 2010, and they are still hosted on the official Michael Jackson estate archive portal. It takes patience to navigate them, but the detail is accurate.
Technical Quality and Restoration Notes
The original rehearsal footage was shot on a mix of Sony PDW-F900 and Canon XL2 cameras. The resolution varies between 720p and 1080p depending on the source. The theatrical release was color-graded and digitally restored, which improved clarity but also altered some of the natural lighting. If you want the most authentic version of the footage, the Blu-ray disc is the best option. It preserves more of the original color balance than the streaming versions. The audio is another issue. Much of the documentary uses temporary music stems because Jackson had not finalized the soundtrack. The official release replaced some of these with mastered versions, but the transitions are occasionally jarring. I suggest watching the Blu-ray with headphones to catch the differences in spatial mixing between the rehearsal audio and the final mix.
Supplemental Material Worth Watching
After seeing the main documentary, there are three supplementary sources that add real value. The first is the making-of featurette included on the DVD, which runs about 30 minutes and shows the production team setting up cameras and lights. The second is the interview with David Frank, the producer who managed Jackson's final tour logistics. He discusses the contract negotiations and the pressure from AEG Live in detail. The third is the BBC documentary One Night with You, which covers the aftermath and the family dispute over the footage. I would skip the unofficial YouTube compilations that claim to show "uncensored rehearsal footage." Most of those are either shortened clips with added music or deepfakes generated from publicly available frames. The real unreleased material is scattered across private archives and has not been made public in full. Anyone selling access to a complete raw footage package is almost certainly running a scam.
Why the Backstage Was Turbulent
The turbulence was structural. Jackson signed a 10-show residency deal with AEG Live in late 2008. The rehearsals began in October 2009, just two months before the first scheduled performance. There was insufficient time for the full production to be built and tested. The stage design was still being fabricated in China while Jackson was rehearsing in Los Angeles. Costumes were not ready until the final week. Health concerns were escalating, but Jackson continued rehearsing at full intensity. This compression of timelines created bottlenecks in nearly every department. Choreography had to be simplified. Vocal arrangements were trimmed. The band rehearsals were shorter than ideal. The result is visible in the documentary, where you can see Jackson adapting routines to fit the time available rather than executing the vision he had initially planned.
How to Approach This Material Critically
If you are researching this documentary for a project or article, do not rely on a single source. Cross-reference the footage with production schedules, interview transcripts, and legal documents from the estate dispute. The official Michael Jackson website and the estate's verified channels are the most reliable starting points. Fan-run databases like MJWiki have detailed timelines, but they require verification against primary sources. The documentary itself is a valuable historical document, but it is not objective truth. It was shaped by the producers' editorial choices and the circumstances of its rushed release. Understanding those constraints will give you a clearer picture than accepting the film at face value.
