History of music videos

Back in 1894, technology is virtually non existent, however this is were the term music video began. Edward B Marks and Joe stern hired somebody to promote there song "The Little Lost Child". A series of still images was projected on screen simultaneously with live performances. This became a popular form of entertainment, referred to as illustrated song. This technique has been adopted by many artists. However this is a very slow version.




Introduction of sound into films
a sound is a motion picture with a synchronized sound, or sound technology matched to an image. The first film to accomplish this was "The Jazz Singer" (1927) It was produced by Warner Bros. In these early times sound was very difficult to record because the camera's were very un-advanced. therefor the camera was very loud & interrupted the film. This meant a decline in cinematography. Technology was not advanced enough to add the sound in later.

Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back




This video was produced in the 1967. & It was a documentary on Bob Dylan's tour of the UK. The video uses one type of camera movement, & that's a zoom in the beginning. The main focus of the video is the cards that Bob Dylan is holding that illustrate the words of the song. The choice of location is down an ally were a building is being worked on. This must have been deliberately picked & echo the words of the song.
This video was part of the docdocumentary which was how music video's began.

The first video of a song made initially for a music video was 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen








The video was produced in 1967 and was the first music video to be designed for TV & not just a film.
This video is 6 minutes long and has various different codes and conventions within it. The narrative structure is performance because there are many points were Queen are performing on stage. The codes and conventions are firstly of a choir type band, as this is the style of the first bit of the song. It then goes into a rock style band song, which is were the stage performance comes in.

The lighting for the choir style is dark and grim with spot lights on. The editing uses many techniques that are still used today such as fading techniques from one clip to another, this helps the song flow more. Also they have recorded the same performance from 2 or 3 different angles, E.G when the lead is playing the piano, & then edited it to look like continuous real time editing.

At the beginning there is a close up of a fire and a choir style behind. This could be an abstract element within the video which has no real relevant's to the song however looks interesting for the audience. They have also used the fading technique for when there are backing vocals & a main singer to make it look like they are both on screen at the same time. This would have been more interesting to watch at the time because nobody knew much about technology.











80's music & the introduction & increase of MTV

MTV is a music channel made just for music videos & related programs. Along with MTV came a rise in music videos and eventually this became part of promoting album's & singles for every artist. The first video to be played on air on MTV was "video killed the radio star" The MTV then was very different to the MTV we have today. we now have series of shows which have nothing much to do with music such as "my super sweet sixteen" which is mindless television.
Back in the 80's MTV was were the stars performed. & eventually it launched an awards evening which still exists today. Such stars as Madonna & Michael Jackson iconic 80's artists. MTV has had a profound affect on the music industry and popular culture. Music videos could also be made into short films such as Michael Jackson - Thriller.