As the Michael Jackson movie This Is It, taken from the rehearsals for the late pop star’s planned comeback shows, hit the big screen last weekend, Atlanta Public Schools can be proud of one of its alumni playing a key role in the movie.
Choreographer Travis Payne, a 1989 graduate of Northside (now North Atlanta) High, where he was taught by William Densmore. (He also attended Fickett Elementary and Southwest (now Young) Middle schools.) An Emmy-nominated TV choreographer (“The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” “MTV Video Music Awards”), Payne also has either danced, choreographed or contributed to music videos for Jackson, Madonna, Sting, Britney Spears and Jackson’s sister, Janet Jackson.
Payne had been working with Michael Jackson and director Kenny Ortega on a film work of the London concerts, and Ortega captured more than a hundred hours of videotape of Jackson preparing for the show. The tape covers four months of rehearsals, but there wasn’t that much to use as some people thought.
“We had remnants,” Payne said in a feature in the Wall Street Journal. He noted that everyone at that point was rehearsing, including the people working the camera: “You don’t see the finished glossy product that we’ve become accustomed to.”