Definition of a Music - A short film/video produced for promotion of the artists music. This means that music video is made to compliment the music and broaden its target audience.
Music videos have developed heavily since 1894 where they first were developed George Thomas who projected a series of images onto a screen while music was playing for the song "The little Lost Child" and invented the first 'Illustrated song'. Since then music videos have developed through a number of eras to get to where they are today. First was the Phonoscene era between 1902 - 1917 this was where a short film was filmed off the actors lip syncing to the words of their music and then the recording and of the music and the video was later syncronised by a man called Leon Gaumont. This were first shown in france.
Next was known as the Talkies, Soundies and Shorts era between 1926 - 1959. Technology had developed ex potentially and producers such as Warner Bros were now directing music videos more like short musicals featuring dancers, bands and vocalists. Shorts were usually around 6 minutes long and was a mix of art deco animation with the film of the artist. Soundies were usually musical styled videos around 3 minutes long and alot more performance based in comparison to shorts which were classed are narratives. Soundies were most common in jazz musicians to display and show off there musical talents with the instruments. As time progessed towards the like 50's both shorts and soundies started to combine. Dancers were usually involved with the videos because recording of "miming" along with the music usually werent as high quality as wanted and the term "music video" was finally devised by a disk jockey singer called J.P Richardson.
With the arrival of the 1960's came the start of a new era known as the "Visual Innovation era". Video had improved in quality with colour being defined and sharped allow artists to now sing along in time with the music for lengthy clips without notice. Pre recording the music and then lip syncing on film became alot more possible. With the invention of scopitone, a visual jukebox, music videos were able to be watched and seen in public more commonly which kick started the "Visual innovation" in short film artists to stand out and be acknowledged in the public. This quickly spread across the world especially into Western culture producing similar products such as the "cineBox" and "Color-Sonic" (The first coloured version). One of the earliest music videos to become highly popluar and hit was Jan & Deans "surf city" which based their video is the malibu surf beach, known for capturing the vibe and atmosphere of the area.
Finally in 1964 came the first of the Music legends with the rise of "The Beatles". These had a dramatic effect on music videos. There first album was shot in black and white, and was depicted as mock documentary against there rivals "The Monkees". However as the band grew and with the release of their new album "Help" they jumped onto colour film and produced multiple sequences all in shot in a london studio but based in serial international locations from Switzerland to the Bahamas, trying to convey the adventure they were having as a band. The band experiment with different camera techniques from cross cuts and focus pulls. They then produced a few promotional clips to help with publicity especially in America.
The clips were especially high quality and were the first time music videos had included editing effects such slow motion and rhythmic editing (in time to the beat).
We these new clips pushing music videos to a new levee; and strategically devised to promote the sales sparked a new style and era of videos. Music videos started to have political or social messages in them, prime example as Bob Dylans "Subterranean Homesick blues". Despite being in black and white it was still very popular because instead of the lead singer singing along with the lyrics he pulled out cards with the lyrics on each some with visual messages. This song also was the home of the very famous saying "You don't have to be a weather man to know which way the wind is blowing".
This was also the start of narrative music videos instead of the prevous performance based videos. The Who produced serial narrative and promotional clips. There song "Happy Jack" was accompanied by the bang dressing up and acting as a gang of thieves. Other bands quickly followed in The Beatles tracks from The Moody Blues , 1967, The Small Faces, 1967 and The Doors 1968. The next few years had a series of great names all producing similar work from the rolling stones in 1967 to David Bowie in 1973.
Finally in 1974 came the beginning of music television. In the UK came the birth of the very famous long running TV show call Top of the Pops (TOTP) which was presented on the BBC. Good videos dramatically increased the sales of the song over the next week which made it extremely competitive for music artists to produce the best music and then look good for the camera when filmed on the show. In 1980 David Bowie got his first number 1 hit in a decade due to a clever promo done by director David Mallet for his song "Ashes to Ashes".
In 1981 music videos go mainstream with the starting of Music Television or MTV which provided music videos and music related programs 24 hours a day. Video recording and editing equipment had come down in price dramatically making it a viable option for most artists. In 1983 the most influential and famous music video of all time was released, Michael Jacksons 14 minute long "Thriller". The video set new standards for production and cost around $500 000. In the next few years with growing popularity of MTV after Michael Jacksons surge, several other music channels opened such as VH1 (Video Hits 1), MTV Asia, Yo! MTV Raps and Canadian MuchMusic.
Different genres of music start to form and become more popular with the increased promotion on the channels, especially hip hop. However in 1992 music videos were viewed as a necessity for the artist and this lead to the introduction of directors. Artists started to pay for film directors with the production of the video. Each director brought a unique turn to the music video industry as the artists were fighting for the "lime light".
Budgets got a lot higher for music videos due to the promotion and attention they were getting. For example two of the most expensive recorded were Michael & Janet Jacksons song "Scream" which cost $7 Million to produce and Madonna's "Bedtime story" which cost $5 million and were both directed by Mark Romanek. Music channels were rapidly growing with MTV bringing out even more channels depicated to specific countries and even a second "senior" channel, MTV2.
In 2005 came the launch of Youtube and internet became the new playground for music artists to promote their music. At first Youtube was slow to get running but with the introduction of artists such as Soulja Boy and Marie Digby created quite memorable videos and posted them on the youtube the website grew in popularity immensely and became a breeding ground for new upcoming artists seeking attention. In 2009 30 Seconds to Mars' song "Kings and Queens" was one of the first ever songs to hit 100 million views andwith the bench mark being set, there was a craze to become the most viewed on youtube. In late 2009 Vevo a music video was set up with syndicated with youtube and google sharing advertising but also allowing artists to be found and discovered alot easier.
