"For 'Billie Jean,' I had to write a treatment for the video before I met Michael," says director Steve Barron. "They said he wanted to do some form of fantasy, something magical. I'd always read that he wanted to be Peter Pan in the movies, and he was sort of a Peter Pan character in real life. So I just wrote this concept about a magical character in which everything he touches would glow." After Barron sent Jackson the outline, things moved at warp speed. "I met with him on a Thursday, and we had to shoot on Monday and Tuesday," Barron says. Shooting was on a humbler budget than Jackson's later epics. "Michael had a really good idea about these tailor dummies in a shop coming to life who dance behind him. The problem was that it was the first single off the album, and nobody knew how big it was going to become. The record company wouldn't come up with any more money." Instead, they filmed on a more modest set with 11 touch-sensitive stones that lit up when Jackson stepped on them. "The cool thing was that nobody had really seen him dance since 'Off the Wall,'" says Barron. "He was a kid, and now here he was, a grown-up. I said, 'Shall we rehearse?' And he said, 'No, let's film.' And when he improvised the dance, everybody was in awe."