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Honoring Michael Jackson in 3-D with Grammy Producer Ken Ehrlich
by Troy Rogers
Although the world is still getting over the sudden
death of Michael Jackson, the 52nd Annual Grammy
Awards is paying tribute to the King of Pop in
creative 3-D Grammy manner on Sunday, January
31 at 8pm with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award, which will be received by the children
of Michael Jackson.
With the help of Celine Dion, Usher, Smokey Robinson, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson, the 3-D Grammy tribute to Michael Jackson for the Lifetime Achievement Award will feature the environmentally compassionate and animal friendly "Earth Song", the third single from the Michael Jackson album, HIStory. In the special video for "Earth Song", which centers on the childlike wonder of Jackson and his love for animals, a young girl in a beautiful forest goes to sleep and wakes up in a land where the beauty has been ravaged and needlessly gone. Throughout his career, Michael Jackson was a fourteen-time Grammy winner, a three time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee, and now receives recognition for an amazing lifetime of many, many record breaking achievements.
 Ahead
of the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, we caught
up with Grammy Executive Producer, Ken Ehrlich,
to learn more about the secrets behind the Michael
Jackson tribute in 3-D, whether viewers at home
will notice a difference, whether Michael Jackson
was on tap to perform at this year's Grammy
ceremony, and what planned project Ken Ehrlich
had on the go with Jackson for the future.
THE DEADBOLT: You've mentioned that
[the Michael Jackson Tribute] will be in 3-D
for "Earth Song" and there are other effects
of a plane and ghosts and so on.
KEN EHRLICH: Yeah, there are, but we've limited ourselves to this. There were a number of 3-D effects that were created for the tour. This is the one that we chose to do.
THE DEADBOLT: For people that don't have 3-D glasses, will the show look any different?
EHRLICH: Not really. If you can imagine - and it gets a little technical here - when you watch a music performance on television, or any show for that matter, a film show, when you're in medium shots and close-ups, because of the depth of field, what's behind it goes to soft focus anyway. All we're doing is, if anything, it's probably emphasizing that a little more because, by definition, 3-D depends upon a double image so that the glasses separate the red and green.
 So
if you're at home and you're watching this without
[glasses] on wide shots, you won't really see
it because basically the image is far enough
away that you can't really see the separation.
When we're on close-ups, basically on close-ups
of people singing, it would be soft focus anyway.
There are a couple of sequences in this where
we're going to full imagery and in those sequences
the image will probably be a little soft for
people watching at home without the glasses.
THE DEADBOLT: Are there any plans to incorporate this technology into future broadcasts of the Grammys?
EHRLICH: I would love to think that at some point we become the first awards show to broadcast the show in 3-D, but that depends on how many millions and millions of 3-D sets. We know CBS this year was all about 3-D, but we're probably five years or more away from where there are enough sets. Or maybe we do it on two tiers. We would love to.
THE DEADBOLT: You met with Michael the day before his death and I wanted to know if it was to discuss his performance at the Grammys? Was he onboard to perform this year?
 EHRLICH:
Well, it wasn't about that but he certainly
was. I mean, what he had told me last January,
and actually in December of last year when we
talked about it, "Not this year, Ken. But next
year we'll do it." But the meeting was actually
another project.
THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk about what that was?
EHRLICH: Yeah. We had been talking about doing a Halloween special and he loved the idea of it and actually wanted to do it. That meeting, I had basically brought him some creative that we had been talking about. He loved it and basically signed off on it and said, "Let's do it."
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