A brief look back at what music videos are:
A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song.
Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music and songs.
Music videos are often called 'Promotional Videos' or more simple terms 'Promos', due the fact they are usually promotional devices.
Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s. In the 1980's, the term 'Rock Video' was often used to describe this form of entertainment. Although now the term has fallen to disuse.
Animation (the rapid display of a sequence of images to create an illusion of movement. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program), live action filming (not produced through animation), documentaries (is used to broaden a category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record) , and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film (is a sub genre of experimental film. Its history often overlaps with the concerns and history of visual music). Some music videos blend different styles together, such as animation and live action. Some music videos do not interpret the song's lyrics, therefore making it less literal than expected. Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the song's live performance.
1902-1917: The phonoscène era
The phonoscene was a forerunner of sound film. It combined a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film shot with actors lip-syncing to the sound recording. The first phonoscènes were presented by Gaumont in 1902 in France.
1926-1959: Talkies, soundies, and shorts
The beginning steps to the advertising and producing of sound film were taken in the United States in the late 1920s. At first, the sound films incorporated synchronised dialogue (known as "talking pictures" or "talkies") and moving images, this could be seen as the beginning of what is know today as Music Videos. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon.
1960–1967: Visual innovation
In the late 1950s the Scoptiton (a visual jukebox) was invented in France and short films were produced. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cine box in Italy and Colour-Sonic in the USA. Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on-location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-syncing, then edited the audio and video together. This is the beginning of the music video industry.
1974–1980 – Beginnings of music television
The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s. A good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.
In 1981, 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. Many important acts of this period, most notably Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.
1992–2004: Rise of the directors
In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Mark Romanek and Hype Williams got their start around this time; they brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray went on to direct feature films.
2005–present: The Internet becomes video-friendly
The earliest purveyors of music videos on the Internet were members of IRC-based groups who recorded them as they appeared on television, then digitised them, exchanging the mpg files via IRC channels. The website iFilm, which hosted short videos, including music videos, launched in 1997. Napster, a file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including music videos.
2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace's video functionality, uses 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.
In 2009, 30 Seconds To Mars' music video "Kings and Queens" was uploaded to popular video-sharing website YouTube on the same day of its release, where it has gained over one hundred million views the same day. It also received over forty million plays on MySpace. "Kings and Queens" was featured as one of the iTunes Store video of the week and was one of the most popular downloaded videos ever to be featured.
Lucy,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very poor entry to your blog. It is far too brief to be considered anything near a historical account. You need to add far more depth.
In the final paragraph you list lots of things that you might see in a music video, I.e., abstract film. However, you do not explain what is meant by this term and, therefore, may be confusing for a reader. You also would be advised to use some screen grabs from videos in order to demonstrate these points and make the blog appear more visual.
In order to improve this post you also MUST (1) Introduce the reader as to the reason why you have included this post and (2) what you think you have learned, how this is going to help your project or what you plan to do next.
Mr Bird