Evolution of The Music Video

• A music video is a short piece of film that accompanies a song or a popular piece of music. These are usually used to draw more attention to the song by people being able to watch it as well as just listen. These were also used to promote the artists in the video. They did this by also having a performance section to the video along with a narrative and/or conceptual section. Between all three of these they make up the basics of a music video

• The music video has taken many different forms over the years. The very earliest sign of a music video started in 1894, combining images to music and have come along way to the full 4 minute, dancing, singing, CGI, action videos we get today.

• Over the years music videos have been used to explain songs, promote artists, advertise products, deliver messages and in many cases, just to entertain their viewing audience!

Introduction

1894 – Illustrated SongIn 1894, composers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern came together to compose their song ‘The Little Lost Child’. However, to make their song sell they needed an idea to promote it. This is when they came across the idea of an illustrated song, an idea that was an extension of what George H. Thomas had done earlier in 1892.

Electrician of The Brooklyn Amphion Theatre at the time, George H. Thomas decided to use a magic lantern to project a single image of a boy in a saloon on to a screen to accompany his song. Marks and Stern stumbled across this idea and eventually worked with Thomas on their production of ‘The Little Lost Child’

This was really seen as the first step towards music videos and clearly worked on the promotional side as ‘The Little Lost Child’ went on to sell over 2 million copies!

1926 - TalkiesIn 1926, Talkies, also known as Sound Films, were introduced. These were images that had been combined and synchronized with music to tell a story, this was apposed to the Silent Movies that were very popular around this time period.

It is rumored that the first public viewing of a Talkie was in Paris in 1900, however we have no evidence of this. The first one official talkie according to records was Don Juan, after a battle for the patent for the vitaphone and the new sound amplification technology, which was finally won by Warners and installed in their theatre in New York with all of the rest of the equipment needed just 2 days before the premier of ‘Don Juan’ on August 4th 1926

By 1930, Talkies were popular all over the world and it helped to secure Hollywood's position as the worlds most powerful commercial system. They had also become very popular all over Europe, Japan. India was also a very popular place for Talkies and lead to a rapid expansion of the film industry in that area and all surrounding areas.

1930 – Screen Songs•Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called ‘Screen Songs’. These are short films using ‘The Bouncing Ball’. This is an old type of Karaoke, with the ball bouncing on the words as they are sung.

Max Fleischer was an American animator, born in Poland in July 1883. His family immigrated to the USA when he was 4 years old and settled down in New York City. As a teenage, Fleischer worked as an errand boy for ‘The Brooklyn Daily Eagle’ and worked his way up to being a cartoonist. Fleischer had a very successful career and brought us characters such as Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman. In 1921 he also created ‘Fleischer Studios’ (Formally known as ‘Out of the inkwell films’) with his brother Dave, to produce animated cartoons.

Another big success in his career was teaming up with Paramount Pictures to create the first ever screen song ‘The Sideways Of New York’

1964 – The Beatles

In 1964 ‘The Beatles’ made a feature film, ‘Hard Days Night’.

Although it was not officially a music video, the film did include Beatles music played simultaneously with videos of the group dancing and singing

This was said to have made the music more popular, with music sales going up, however this may have just been because the film was released in the time of ‘Beatlemania’

1965 – The BeatlesTo save them having to do lots of live TV performances to promote their upcoming album, The Beatles made 10 promotional videos instead so that they could be aired on TV at any point.

This was the first real step towards the music video as we know it today as they were being used for things like artist promotion just as we do in music videos in the 21st century

The songs used in the videos were ... We Can Work It Out, Day Tripper, Help!, Ticket To Ride and I Feel Fine which were all aired on Hullaballo, Top of the Pops, Thank your lucky stars and more!

1975 – The Who, TommyIn 1975, The Who released their all-music feature film Tommy, directed by Ken Russell based upon their 1969 rock opera of the same name.

This brought a lot of publicity to the band and brought them into the public eye and was one of the key moments in the career of ‘The Who’. The main way it gained publicity is because lead singer, Roger Daltrey played the lead role of ‘Tommy Walker’

The film gained a lot of publicity also from by being shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival

1975–Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

Before this time other artists were releasing promotional videos, but it wasn’t until this music video that they really became popular

Bohemian Rhapsody is a simple video that just shows the band performing the song. However, releasing this along with the single showed to improve sales of the single considerably

it was only after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that it became a regular occurrence for record companies to make music videos for artists single releases

1981 – US Launch MTV* MTV launched on August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m.

* It was launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by John Lack

* These were spoken to the footage of the first ever space shuttle launch

* MTV was the first ever channel to be based on pure music videos.

* The videos would be presented and introduced by Presenters, nicknamed VJ’s (Video Jockeys)

* The first song to be played on MTV was The Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star

* When the show was aired however, it only gained the attention of kids as the older generation weren’t interested

* This has however changed in the last 30 years and now has over 340 Million Viewers!

This music channel is said to have changed the

world of fashion, music and film itself!

1983–Michael Jackson, Thriller

When Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out, it took the music video to a whole new level. Before this time they were really made to be a video that went with the song, but this showed that people were starting to pay more attention to the videos. This was also the first sign of artists going more up-market with their videos.

It involves a story line, large scale dances and lots of scenery, costumes and make-up

1985 – Launch of VH1

•The targeted audience of VH1 is slightly more demographic than its MTV

• MTV, focusing mainly on the lighter side of pop music.

•The introduction of VH1 gave music videos a wider audience and more different genres to cover, boosting the popularity majorly and gaining interest of the older generation.

•Its more recent claim to fame has been in the area of music-related reality programming, such as Behind the Music.

2005 – Launch of YouTube

•YouTube was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005.

• It is a video sharing website that allows anyone to watch, upload or share videos of their choice.

• In July 2006 they had more than 65,000 videos being uploaded to the site every day

• YouTube is now receiving 100million video views per day

• With the great amount of views per day and with the great rate videos are being posted and shared then this in itself speaks about the great succsess YouTube was and especially towards the music video. With easy streaming and quick listening and viewing, YouTube took the music video to a whole new level of popularity.

2005 - Launch Of ITunes•In 2005, Apple launched the Ipod and Itunes

• This meant that music videos could now be downloaded from the internet for very little cost

• Also using the Ipod, they could be taken with you everywhere. This was a main influence to start stepping up the quality of music videos. If someone liked a video they would buy it and put it on their Ipod and then probably show it to a friend. This meant more advertising for the artists the better their video.

• Another way to advertise an artist via video through Itunes is by making the video free to download. This would convice people to download it on their ipod and would then interest others to buy if they see the video or hear the music on the video.

What Does The Music Video Do Today ?

Product Placement Product placement is a very important factor of today's music video. This is where artists will advertise a product in their video. This could be by wearing them, eating it, drinking it, or using the product in any way shape or form. In certain cases the product may just be sitting in the camera shot but still this is effective because just the slightest symbol can jog your memory about that product and/or it will subconsciously enter your memory so when you see the product in everyday use, you will automatically link the product with the artist. This convinces people to buy it because they consider it to be a very popular product if it is used by their favourite artist. This has been done in many videos, for example, Tinie Tempah advertising Lucozade and Lady Gaga advertising ‘Dr. Dre Beats’.

The Product Placement logo seen in all music videos, TV programs and films that advertises products.

Top 5 Music Videos Of All Time

No.5 2Pac, California Love

No.4Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

No.3AHA, Take On Me

No.2Peter Gabriel, Sledgehammer

No.1Michael Jackson, Thriller

Comments – Danny you have clearly carried our some detailed research but you are writing in bullet points. This should be a descriptive piece with lots of detail which should inform.

To improve:1. Provide an introduction, a development and conclusion2. Write a bibliographyInitial Grade C-