History of music History of music videovideo

Mary Medrana

What is a music video?• A music video or song video is a short film incorporating a song and imagery.

• It is produced for promotional or artistic purposes.

• Modern music videos are used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

• Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium.

• Music videos use a wide range of styles of contemporary video making techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film.

• Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song’s lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach.

• Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the song’s live performance.

1894 – First example of ‘Illustrated Song’• Sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern

hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song “The Little Lost Child”.

• Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances.

• This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video.

• The first illustrated song “The Little Lost Child” went on to become a nationwide hit selling more than two million copies of its sheet music.

1926 – Arrival of ‘Talkies’

• With the arrival of ‘Talkies’ many musical short films were produced.

• A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technology coupled to image as opposed to a silent film.

• Many musical short films produced featuring many bands, vocalists and daners.

• A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology.

• The first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927.

• By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon.

1930-1959 – Musical Films• The musical film was a film genre in which several songs were

interwoven into the film.• The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film’s characters.• It was a natural development of the stage musical after the

emergence of sound film technology.• The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies

shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. These were examples of musical films.

• Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna’s 1985 video for “Material Girl” which was closely modelled on Jack Cole’s staging of Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

1930-1940 – Ancestor of the Music Video• Many artists featured in dramatized performances of hit

songs.• In the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films

for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the “ancestors” of music video.

• In his autobiography Tony Bennett claims to have created “…the first music video” when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956. The clip was send to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

• In 1957, the second music video of the story set in United States, starring Elvis Presley item Jailhouse Rock, the famous theme prison rock, disseminated images in black and white of the time.

1930 – “Screen Songs” Introduced

• Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by “following the bouncing ball”, which is similar to a modern karaoke machine.

• Screen songs were produced by Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. They were revived by Famous studios in 1945.

• The early Song Car-Tunes were among the earliest sound films, produced two years before the Jazz Singer. They were largely unknown at the time because their release was limited to the chain of 36 theatres.

1940-1949 – Arrival of Promotional Clips• These were short films of many famous jazz artists

and their bands on a movie-set bandstand.

• The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seem to be “Dame si do bytu” (Let’s get to the apartment”) created in 1958.

• In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists to accompany their songs.

• Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented.

1956-1960 – Rise of Television• The rise of popular music was tied with the rise of

television as the format exposed new stars.

• The Australian TV shows Countdown and Sounds, both of which premiered in 1974, were significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre in Australia and other countries, and in establishing the importance of music video clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by establishing acts.

• The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s, although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of ‘outsourced’ videos TOTP could use. Therefore a good video would increase a song’s sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.

1964 – The Beatles• The Beatles set the stage for the modern music video with

the motion picture “A Hard Days Night.”

• This was their first feature film directed by Richard Lester.

• Shot in black-and-white and presented as a mock documentary, it interspersed comedic and dialogue sequences with musical tones.

• The musical sequences furnished basic templates on which countless subsequent music videos were modelled.

• It was the direct model for the successful US TV series The Monkees which similarly consisted of film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs.

1965 – The Beatles use Promotional Films

• Beatles film 10 films which are used to promote album releases. Kicks off video promotion.

• The Beatles began making promotional clips for distribution and broadcast in other countries – primarily the USA – so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances.

• By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966, their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated.

• In May 1966 they filmed two sets of colour promotional clips for their current single “Rain”/”Paperback Writer” all directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who went on to direct The Beatles final film Let It Be.

• The colour promotional clips for “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane”, made in early 1967 and directed by Peter Goldman took the promotional film format to a new level. They used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, including reversed film and slow motion, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and colour filtering added in post-production.

1981 – MTV Launched• 24hour broadcast means music videos begin to play a central role in music marketing

by the mid 1980s.

• The US video channel MTV launched, airing “Video Killed the Radio Star” and beginning an era of 24 hour a day music on television.

• With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing.

• The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by television personalities known as “video jockeys,” or VJs.

• In its early years, MTV’s main target demographic were young adults, but today, MTV’s programming is primarily targeted at adolescents and teenagers.

1983 - Thriller

• The video for “Thriller”, along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs “Billie Jean” and “Beat It”, were instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV.

• Prior to Jackson’s success, videos by African-American artists were rarely played on MTV: according to MTV, this was because it was initially conceived itself as a rock-music-oriented channel.

• Michael Jackson’s most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time released.

• It lasts for nearly 14 minutes and was directed by John Landis.

• The video set new standards for production, having cost $800,000 to film.

1985 – VH1 Launched• This featured softer music and catered to an older demographic, widening the

audience of videos.

• It is an American cable television network based in New York City.

• Launched on January 1, 1985

• The original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly older demographic than its sister channel, focusing on the lighter, softer side of popular music.

• While VH1 occasionally plays music videos and the Top 20 Video Countdown, its recent claim to fame has been in the area of music-related reality programming, such as Behind the Music, the I Love… series, the Celebreality block of programming, and the channel’s overall focus on popular culture.

1988 – Hip Hop Growth• Hip Hop sees significant growth and popularity as MTV lauches Yo! MTV Raps.

• It is a two-hour American television music video program, which ran from August 1988 to August 1995.

• It was the first hip hop music show on the network, based on the original MTV Europe show, aired one year earlier.

• It produced a lively mix of rap videos, interviews with rap stars. Live in studio performances and comedy.

• Its launch was crucial to the spread of hip-hop around the world. Through MTV Europe, MTV Asia, and MTV Latino, African-American and Latino style and sound was instrantly available to millions of people across the globe. This helped to create a worldwide appreciation and interest in the hip-hop scene, which is something that was celebrated on the Yo! MYV Raps 20th anniversary.

1992 – Rise of the Directors• Listed in the credits for the first time, directors such as Gondry and Romanek launch

careers.

• MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur’s medium.

• Directors all got their start around this time; all brought a unique version and style to the videos they directed.

• Some of the directors went on to direct feature films.

1995 - Scream• The Jackson’s “Scream”, costing seven

million to produce, is the most expensive music video ever.

• At a cost of $7 million, it was listed in the Guinness World Records as the most expensive music video ever made.

• It went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award and an American Music Award.

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2005 - YouTube• Allows people to watch videos online. New artists see popularity rise through internet.

• It made the viewing of online video much faster and easier; Google videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace’s video functionality, use similar technology.

• Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.

• The band OK Go may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, “A Million Ways” in 2005 and “Here It Goes Again” in 2006, both of which first became well-known online.

2005 – iTunes Opens• Allows music videos to be downloaded from the internet. One million

downloads after twenty days.

• As its launch, Apple’s iTunes Store provided a section of free music videos in high quality compression to be watched via the iTunes application.

• More recently the iTunes Store has begun selling music videos for use on Apple’s iPod with video playback capability.

• It is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc.

• It has been the largest music vendor in the United States since April 2008 and the largest in the world since February 2010.

2010 – One Billion• Lady Gaga’s music video views reach one billion views. Her song

“Poker Face” sees 375 million alone.

• It was filmed at a luxury villa on bwin PokerIsland. Bwin also provided the poker equipment and obtained product placements in return.

• The video premiered on October 22, 2008 and was premiered on MTV UK on February 17, 2009.

• The video won the Best International Artist Video at the 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards.

• Number of music videos viewed online reaches 34 billion with 183 million viewers.