I ran into sound designer extraordinaire Stephen Dewey of Machine Head the other day, and
he mentioned that he’d worked with Michael Jackson on the famed “Street” spot for LA Gear… Needless to say, I asked him to share some of his recollections with our readers. Stephen graciously obliged:

“Shortly after I embarked on the sound designer phase of my career, I received a call to work on an LA Gear advert for a Michael Jackson shoe.

This job, it turned out, was going to be a little out of the ordinary! Instead of people coming to me, I was required to appear at a film mixing sound stage in the valley, Todd-AO, as I recall. I hefted my hundred pound Fairlight computer and various other gadgets into the car and headed over for a brisk nine am start. This was back in the day of video tape. At that point, film sound stages were still very much film-based, so deploying a 3/4 video deck caused quite a kafuffle, let alone a sound computer. Doughnuts were dropping everywhere. An hour or so later, with video and smpte time code flowing freely, I was ready to roll, waiting nervously for Michael Jackson. I had spent many hours in the studio with Michael in a previous incarnation of myself, as a sound programmer, working on the “Bad” album. So I had a general idea of what to expect.

Soon enough, a slender, quiet, but massively charismatic presence entered the room, uttering quiet but cheerful hellos. A little time was spent chatting with Sandy, the owner of LA Gear, who was there to observe proceedings. We began work by viewing the cut, spotting, identifying what sort of sounds would go where. Since the spot featured a solo Michael dancing in a lamp lit deserted alley, I was going to have little use for my library of sounds. I knew that Michael would like to act out the sounds himself, and sure enough, ever the performer, he was delighted when I told him of my plan. The stage wasn’t a foley stage, it was purely a mix room, so there was not much there, other than the sofas, a giant console, some floor space and the screen!

We improvised a lot. For Michael’s foot sounds, we ran a long mic cable out of the back of the
studio lounge and into the parking lot, where he performed a variety of spins, jumps, skids, and stomps. Following that, we came back in the studio and set up the mic in front of the screen. While playing the film, Michael replicated the moves and I captured the sound of his clothing, his breaths, body hits and various shouts. When we had finished with that I began to sort through the sounds we had so far and create a track to match action. This he enjoyed immensely, and as I worked, Michael chatted away, swapping anecdotes and generally being the playful joking person that he was. Very polite and always respectful, he was fun to be with. Having established the Michael portion of the track, I then added in the additional sounds to complete the track.

We were approaching the end of the afternoon, as we moved from a building phase to the mixing phase, adjusting the relative volume of the sounds until, a few hours later we had a finished piece. I was tired, but it was fun. Although Michael was perfectly pleasant, I was still creating – on the spot – an entire soundtrack from scratch with one of the most enigmatic and notorious people on the planet. No pressure!! It was with great satisfaction that I loaded the computer back in the car and headed home.”

To view the LA Gear “Street” commercial, click here.