On Friday, November 20, I was informed that Michael was sending a cargo jet to Sarajevo with blankets, clothing, medical supplies and toys for children caught in the war in Yugoslavia. He was going to see the jet off at Kennedy Airport in New York.
My immediate thought was to hire a small film crew to capture the moment for our publicity department and acquire footage for future video releases. Whenever an opportunity arose to stockpile visual assets for our superstars, I would assess the opportunity and, if the cost was right, add the footage, photos or audio to our marketing toolbox. I just needed a cameraman and an assistant.
It was a brisk Tuesday morning as I cabbed it from home in Rockville Centre, about ten miles east of JFK, to meet my film crew. After a quick greeting, we settled in to wait. A couple of maintenance guys were prepping the plane, but there was nothing to shoot until Michael got there. After standing around making small talk for half an hour, my guys retreated to their van to get out of the cold.
Michael arrived in a limo unaccompanied, not even by security people, wearing only a light jacket, so I had to find someplace where we could go to stay warm. His car would return later, so we took refuge in the hangar. The only enclosed space was a small office about six feet square.
We ducked in and chatted about his flight to New York and how close to the airport I lived. I gave him an outline of the morning I had planned, particularly about shooting the event. It actually helped to be in this tiny freight office. I wanted him to know that I valued his time, that I thought documenting his charitable efforts was a good thing and that awareness of that work should be greater. He acknowledged my thoughts with a nod. It was one of several times I realized he did charitable work without considering if it got media coverage or not. He didn’t mind it being covered, but he never expected it, required it or made any effort to see it happen.
Having Michael in New York gave me a rare opportunity to corner him about other promotional work. He was scheduled to perform at the Super Bowl in January. I had been in meetings with the National Football League’s logistics team, which was planning the halftime show and related activities. Our radio promotion department had already begun putting together campaigns for fly-away contests with key stations in all the major markets. This particular contest was extremely exciting for local radio stations. Our promo people could use it to leverage continued airplay for Michael as well as increased airplay for other Epic artists.
What if Michael personalized the promo spots for each station taking part in the contest? Stations would go crazy to have their own spots with Michael Jackson telling listeners to tune in! Our promo people loved my idea, and I was able to get a commitment from Michael to record them. We scheduled a Wednesday morning session in his suite at the Helmsley Palace.
I contacted my counterpart in international marketing, Lisa Kramer, to offer Michael’s customized promos to other territories planning Super Bowl contests. Lisa went to work and came back with an extensive list of requested IDs for stations in Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan. This was going to be the most extensive radio contest ever created for a recording artist, and we had put the plan together virtually overnight. Michael Jackson was going to personalize every spot! It was like hitting the promotional lotto.
“He would agree to do those things in the States, [but] we couldn’t get him to do stuff internationally,” Lisa remembered. “Michael was bigger in Europe than he was in America. But as long as you told him it was the biggest and the best and nothing had ever been done like that before, we were good.”
Shivering together in the tiny office, we talked about the plan. I told Michael how over-the-top this was and how each station was thrilled to get these spots. And how excited the Epic promotion team would be to personally deliver the spots to programmers. He was eager to do them and loved how we had planned to use his personal touch to strengthen his position at Urban and Pop radio around the world. He was thrilled that we were about to do the first-ever global radio contest and that it was the first time these radio stations would have Michael speaking their call letters.
Michael Jackson may not have been an athlete in the classic sense, but one of the biggest discoveries I made working with him was that he had the competitive edge and enthusiasm of one. He loved to compete; it was one of his greatest passions and pleasures. I think it was part of the dreamer in him. How far could he go? What else could he achieve? In its purest form, it was one of his greatest attributes.
Michael was beginning to sense that I was going the extra mile to develop unique ways of personalizing, expanding and making special the marketing elements of his career. He loved the big ideas, but also enjoyed the small thoughtful touches we could integrate into our efforts that his fans would notice.
As we talked in the hangar, a stretch limo pulled up and two men stepped out. Both were dressed in sport coats without ties: standard fare for executives in the entertainment business. They found their way into the tiny office where Michael and I were keeping warm. It was Mickey Schulhof, chairman of Sony Entertainment, and Peter Guber, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
I suddenly became the extra guy in the room, the proverbial fifth wheel, as Mickey greeted Michael warmly, congratulating him for his generous charitable effort. Expanding the conversation, Mickey thanked Michael for having him as a dinner guest at Neverland the previous week. Mickey was effusive about how beautifully and tastefully decorated the house was and how comfortable he felt there. He then referred to all the charitable work Michael did at the ranch and how many Make-a-Wish groups came there, sometimes even when Michael wasn’t at home. He again congratulated Michael on sending the plane to Sarajevo.
Mickey then urged Michael to be more open about his charitable efforts. He said that by being more vocal about it, Michael could show leadership by example and inspire others. Michael agreed very modestly, nodding his head and breaking into his shy smile. Schulhof continued, suggesting to Michael that he should film one of the Make-a-Wish days at Neverland. Again, Michael nodded politely, fully expecting the conversation to move on to another issue. Mickey then offhandedly asked when Michael was hosting another family group from Make-a-Wish. Michael said, “Next Monday.”
Mickey turned to me. “Dan, can you get a crew there?” I was stunned. My mind raced through a myriad of potential problems. The first was will Michael do this? The second was putting together a crew and a plan over Thanksgiving weekend. How could we possibly pull this together? Every Michael Jackson shoot was an enormous undertaking. I thought about getting families with terminally ill children on board with the idea of a commercial film crew covering this extremely personal event by Monday. I kept all those concerns to myself.
Michael started to backpedal a little, musing to no one in particular, “We’ve never shot anything at the ranch before.” He added that he had tried not to commercialize his home. Schulhof reassured Michael that it was all for the right reasons. While my head swam with all the potential challenges, I (of course) told the chairman of the company that I would do all I could to pull it together. Mickey suggested I call Michael Borofsky, who filmed corporate events for him and had an office in the Sony building on Madison Avenue.
Before long, the plane doors closed, and Michael made a brief statement on the plight of the world’s children. The cargo jet crawled out of the hangar to catch the tailwinds to Eastern Europe and we all headed our separate ways. I confirmed with Michael that I would see him bright and early the next morning at his hotel.
I headed to my office. In the town car, I called Borofsky on my boxy 1992 cell phone and arranged a meeting. He assured me he could assemble a crew in L.A. that could make the trip up to Los Olivos for the shoot on Monday. We talked about what I had just done with Michael at JFK as the beginning of an effort to document more of his charitable efforts.
I followed up with Michael’s management and his personal staff. Sandy Gallin’s office directed me to coordinate everything with Norma Staikos, Michael’s assistant, who could marshal the staff at Neverland to accommodate a film crew along with the Make-a-Wish guests. By late afternoon, Make-a-Wish had cleared the filming with all twelve families bringing their kids to Neverland. Everything was a go.
