History of Music Videos

So that i can understand the conventions and get an understanding of music videos i am going to research the history of music videos. This will give me a true feel and connexion with music videos which will allow me to stress the correct conventions.

A music video is a short video that is shown with a piece of music. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device to make the song well known so that more people will buy the song or album.

In 1926, many Musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (1926–30), which were produced by Warner Bros, featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. A Vitaphone was a sound film process used on features and nearly 2,000 short subjects in 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes. The sound was not printed on a film, but was issued separately on 16-inch phonograph records. The discs would be played while the film was being projected on a screen.

The series entitled Spooney Melodies was the first musical video series. The shorts lasted about six minutes long and included art deco style animations and backgrounds with film of the performer singing the song. This was basically the start of music videos. This voyeuristic pleasure meant that people could see there favorite artists perform on screen instead of seeing them live.

In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. This was the start of people being able to regularly watch there favorite artists in many different areas.

In 1964, The Beatles cemented their new found international fame by starring in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night. Shot in black and white, it was a loosely structured musical fantasia interspersing comedic. This meant that The Beatles could be seen world wide performing there songs but not have to be present. As a result of this voyeuristic pleasure, the Beatles stopped touring in 1966 as there was no real need as they were already known world wide because of there music video.

The 1966 clip for Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues featured in Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary Don't Look Back. The clip shows Bob Dylan standing in a back alley, dropping large cue cards showing the key lyrics in time to the music. This music video was a key turning point in music video history as more and more artist made music videos to get there music out in the public.

In 1969, the independent music movie clips came out of fashion. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, bands preferred performing in TV shows which became visually more attractive as it was a new form of voyeuristic pleasure for the public to see.

During late 1972–73 David Bowie featured in a series of promotional films directed by pop photographer Mick Rock, who worked with Bowie in this period. These clips are important in the development of the music video genre in the 1970s. They are also notable because they were made by a professional photographer rather than an established film or TV director, and because Rock was given total creative control over the clips.

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. In 1975, the band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top of the Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape. This was because Queen realized that there was still a market in making music videos to sell and promote there music.

In 1981, the U.S. 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.

Two key innovations in the development of the modern music video were the development of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use video recording and editing equipment, and the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key. Chroma-key is the use of a blue or green screen which means that the actor or artist does not have to be in the scene. Two images are put together to form one so that the artist is just seen in one location.

In 1983, the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song, "Thriller." The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film. That video, along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat it", also was instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV. MTV started to develop more and more music channels like VH1 in 1985, MTV Europe in 1987 and MTV Asia in 1991. This shows how music and their videos developed over the years as popularity of voyeuristic pleasure increased. This leads to more and more people taking interest in music videos and the songs used in them.

In the modern day we get to see music videos present in all different aspects of the media. For example, we can see music videos on the Internet such as YouTube, on TV programmes like T4 music, Kiss and Smash hits. These are just a selection of many different programmes that can be found as well each having their own website. Also music videos can be seen on mobile phones and on different mp3's like ipods. This shows how easy it is for someone to watch a music videos. This is why a lot of modern artist produce music videos to promote and advertise themselves and the music they produce to their target audience.