Joe Pytka (Video director): The only guidance I had for “Dirty Diana” was they wanted Michael to look like a rocker. That’s why we made it look like that. That was the only charge, was to make it look like a rock n’ roll concert, rather than blues. In those days, they were still transitioning between rhythm and blues and rock n’ roll, so they wanted it to be harder than this other stuff in terms of performance. They wanted a concert video. Actually, we built a set in the same factory that we built “The Way You Make Me Feel.” What happened was, I wanted the set to be destroyed in a storm. If you look at the video, there’s a lot of wind and everything in the video, in the background. We were going to shoot in two days. The first day, it was going to be a normal shoot, and the second day, we were going to have a rainstorm. Lightning, thunder, everything crashing. And the story was set. And what happened was, on the first day, Michael hurt himself doing his knee slides. He didn’t put kneepads on. So he was doing knee slides without knee pads, and he could barely walk. So the second day, we couldn’t shoot.
Larry Stessel (Epic Records exec): When we were making the video and I got the first edit, it was just terrible. It was horrible! It didn’t even resemble a music video, but Joe Pytka was a brilliant commercial maker, and Michael was in Europe with Frank DiLeo. I said “Frank, I can’t let this go.” He said, “You edit it,” and I said "I can’t edit," so he goes, “One second,” and puts Michael on the phone. He asked what’s the problem, and I said “Michael, it’s just horrible!” He goes, “Do whatever you want and I’ll call Joe.”
Pytka: I fought with Epic about the edits. We had issues with the editing. They sent a young executive to deal with me, and I forget what the issue was. I re-edited the piece. They had some comments, and they wanted to have their editor in New York edit the thing, and I just told him where to shove it, and I did the changes myself.
Stessel: I went over to Joe Pytka’s office and he asked “What do you want? What do you see?” So I played him the video for “Living On A Prayer” where Jon [Bon Jovi] flies through the air. I said, “This video is so good, I’d **** him." Pytka took the video, threw it on the ground and stepped on it, said "This is garbage." I said "Well, you may think it’s garbage, but I gotta tell you something, this guy sold 12 million records, so there’s gotta be something going for it." He says, “Well, I’m not gonna do it." So I said "Great," and went into the editing room with this editor who I happen to know from working on some music videos from some Stallone movies, and we started editing it. And about a half-hour later, Pytka enters and says, “You can leave, I know what you want.” So the next day, he delivered “Dirty Diana” and it was great. It was perfect.
Pytka: Michael was brilliant in that thing. Some of the things he did, the crowd went crazy. They’re a paid audience, you know, we have a paid crowd of extras. But they go crazy, even though they’re being paid. They went nuts... Being onstage with the music, and him performing, and feeling the crowd, there’s nothing like it. You just know why these guys go crazy for performing. You just feel the energy. It’s breathtaking. I think I was so overwhelmed by that that I didn’t even turn my camera on.
Stessel: Joe did a great job. I was at the shoot and Michael stands straight, he drops to his knees, Lisa Dean rips his shirt open and he screams. That’s sexy. That’s what people want to see. Guys want to see it, girls want to see it. I said “That’s sexy shit, and you left it out of the first take. How can you do that?” It’s animalistic, it’s what people want.
