History of music video

History of music videos

Music video:

A filmed or videotaped rendition of a recorded song, often portraying musicians performing the song or including visual images interpreting the lyrics. A music video is produced for promotional or artistic purposes.

In 1894 George Thomas was hired and other performers to promote sales of a song - The Little Lost Child -Thomas projected still images of a screen, this was the first step towards maknig music videos.
From 1902 - 1917 The phonoscene was a created, it combined a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film shot with actors lip-synching to theb sound recording. Then from 1926 - 1959 'talkies' were created and were used in musical short films. 'Spooney Melodies in 1930 was the first true musical video series created. An animation artist called Max Fleischer created a series of sing along short cartoons - Screen Songs - which made audiences sing along to the songs playing, this concept is still used during the 21st century for example in films such as 'High School Musical' where their target audience can sing along with the actors. The early made films by Walt Disney featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers also performed cartoons which included songs too.

The beginning of music videos
The 'ancestors' of music videos began in 1929 when Bessie Smith (Blues singer) was in a two-reel short film - St. Louis Blues - which featured a performance of hit songs. Also later in the 1940's Lousi Jordan made short films for his songs, some where featured in the film Lookout Sister.
Many music videos have copied the style of classic Hollywood musics for example in 1985 Madonna released a video for 'Material Girl' which was similiar to 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' which is from the film Gentlement Prefer Blondes. Another example is Michael Jackson's song 'Bad' the director was influenced by the 'fights' in the film West Side Story.

In the 1950's the Scopitone (A visual jukebox) was invented in France and short films were produced to accompany the French artists songs. Then in 1957 the first video which was called a music video was Tony Bennett's video of him walking in Hyde Park while his song - Stranger in Paradise - played in the background, this film was played by both UK and US television stations. Television made this music video popular as before acts had to attract an audience to the box office in order to watch their film or video.

In 1963 one of  Jan & Dean's song - Surf City - reached Number One nationally in July. Then in 1964 The Beatles starred in their first feature film - A Hard Day's Night - it was presented as a mock documentary which was shot in black and white. The Beatles secodn feature film - Help was released in 1965 was filmed in colour in London and international locations. The Beatles then started making promotional clips mainly in the US for promotion, which would be easy to promote their songs as they would not have to make a personal appearance. However in 1967 the Beatles music videos for 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' took the promotional filming to a new level as they included; reversed film, slow motion, dramatic lighting etc.

In the late 1970s 'Top of the Pop's began to play music videos, which would lead to a music video having an increase in sales.  For example David Bowie had his first number one because of the director David Mallet's "eye catching" promotion for 'Ashes to Ashes'. Also in Australia when the TV shows 'Countdown' and 'Sounds' began in 1974, they were significant in developing and making music video genres in Australia and other countries popular. Also similar to Australia New Zealand used a music TV show - Radio With Pictures - to begin the music video format.

However it was in 1981 when America launched MTV (video channel) they began the era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. Because of music channels this was now the main technique for music marketing. During this period the artists and directors worked together to;

• Explore and expand the form an style of the genre
• Use more sophisticated effects in their videos
• Mix film and video
• Add a storyline
• Create a plot for the music video

From time to time some videos were made in a non-representational form, where they artist is not show and because music video's are mainly made in order to promote artists, it's rare that artists make these videos however Queen did this for their music video - Under Pressure.

Then in 1983 Michael Jackson's 14 minute long video for the song 'Thriller' became one of the most successful, influential and iconic music videos of al time. The video cost; $500,000 for production and 'Thriller', 'Billie Jean' an 'Beat It' were mainly used for getting African American artists music videos played on MTV. Before Michael Jacksons success videos by African American artists were not played on MTV and African American artists said it was "blatant racism".
MTV then launched:

• A Canadian music channel MuchMusic - In 1984
• MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's) which is an annual event which would include MTV's importance in the music industry - In 1984
• VH1 which included softer music therefore the target audience was an older demographic compared to MTV - 1985
• MTV Europe - 1987
• MTV Asia - 1991

Also a huge development within music videos was the launch of The Chart Show on Channel 4 in the UK in 1986, this program was consisted only on music videos without any presenters, the show then later moved to ITV (in 1989). Then for Dire Straits song 'Money for Nothing' in 1985 during the music video they made use of computer animation which helped make the song an international hit. Later in 1988 the MTV show 'Yo! MTV Raps' debuted and the show helped bring hip hop music to a mass audience for the first time ever.

The famous music video director Mark Romanek is popular for being responsible for two of the three most expensive music video's of all time; Michael and Janet Jacksons song 'Scream' which cost $7 million to produce and Madonna's song 'Bedtime Story' which cost $5 million.

In 2005 Youtube was launched, which made it easier and faster to view online video's, artists then saw the success  because of this website. Artists such as Soulja Boy and Justin Bieber have become successful because of releasing video's online and then being signed to a record label. By 2011 Lady Gaga's music vieo 'Bad Romance' was the most viewed video on Youtube and the internet with 430 million views, Justin Bieber's song 'Baby' then beat Gaga as he had 660 million views. Jennifer Lopez became the most viewed female video on Youtube which had 430 million views.

Cee Lo Green and Katy Perry were among the first artists to release lyric video's. A 'lyric video' is usually released by a music label before the official music video for a song is released.

From 1980s music videos have been censored as they have been inappropriate for certain viewers. From the first video banned by MTV was Queen's hit 'Body Language' as their was lots of skin and sweat and not enough clothing which was unsuitable for the audience at the time, to Rihanna's video 'S&M' which was banned in 11 countries as it was inappropriate for viewers under the age of 18.

The timeline of history of music videos are important to the planning stage of our music video as we will need to make sure that our music video reaches our target audience, therefore we will need to consider the social  networking sites we could upload our music video to.