History of Music Video's

Nowadays, music videos are one of the most powerful and frequent marketing tools used by music artists. Not only do they advertise the song itself, but they also create a particular image for the artist. Music videos largely came into importance to artists in the 80’s, when MTV focused their purpose around the video media. However, prior to MTV, music videos were alternatively known as illustrated songs, filmed inserts, promotional films or film clips. The first step towards music videos was the illustrated song, in which a series of still images were projected onto a screen simultaneously with live musical performances. Music videos use a wide range of different techniques, varying from animation, live action filming and documentaries, to abstract film containing little, if any, narrative.
In 1964, The Beatles created a ‘mock-documentary’ for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, which was filmed in black and white. Following this, in 1965 The Beatles released ‘Help!’ their second promotional film, which was seen in colour and contained a narrative. The Beatles were known for pushing boundaries, using unusual cinematography and slightly taboo narratives, particularly in their third music television video, lasting an hour long, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’.
In the late 1970s, the BBC began playing music videos on the British TV show ‘Top of the Pops’. Evidentially, a good music video aired on the show saw increasing sales the following week. In 1983, Michael Jackson released a fourteen minute music video for his song ‘Thriller’, which was voted as ‘the most influential pop music video of all time’. In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the video as the ‘most successful music video’, due to it selling over 9 million units. The video itself cost over $500,000 and not only contains a live performance of the song, but also a narrative outside of the song itself involving Michael Jackson acting as a teenage version of himself. This video uses many codes and conventions of the horror genre, in which Michael borrows from existing versions of this genre, such as horror films. For example, the jacket which Michael wears within the video is black and red in colour; the black suggesting darkness and the red connoting blood or danger. The narrative includes an old, abandoned house, also fairly common within horror films.
Successful music videos use editing which ensures that the video cuts in time to the beat. Non-abstract videos use a mise-en-scene that interprets the lyrics, whereas abstract videos use different visual ideas and techniques in order to make the video interesting for the audience. In many post modem videos, the artists borrow from other styles of film and videos; like in ‘Thriller’. For example, Oasis use the style of British social realism during the late 50’s/early 60s within their video, ‘The Importance of Being Idle’. The video uses various codes for an ‘old-fashioned’ video, such as it being filmed in black and white, and beginning with an introduction of grainy music that appears to have a lot of interference. Their video shows the dominance of the middle and upper classes during that time period, as well as borrowing ideas about the representation of the working class from the film ‘Billy Liar’, on which the overall style of the video is based.
Moreover, earlier music videos were largely based around performance. For example, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, aired in 1975, contained all performance, through a large amount of camera angles and editing in order to make the video interesting. It is said that after the success of this single after releasing the music video, it became regular practise for record companies to release videos for their artist when releasing singles. Over time, music videos have expanded to become more narrative based than performance based, using a range of different techniques rather than just the one. For example, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ was a fairly abstract music video that used animation to bring life to many images. Though the video is not entirely representative of the song lyrics, it is a highly interesting video.
Overall, almost every single released at present is released alongside a music video; it is now an expected aspect of single release. Artists now spend thousands of pounds to come up with original ideas for their videos, keeping to the conventions of the genre of their songs. Modern music videos also cause the audience to project their desires onto the artists, who portray different images of themselves within their videos. We, as an audience, wish to have a life like the people in the video. Overall this desire has also grown alongside the development of music videos and their content.

Coursework Brief Specification

1) A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

- a website homepage for the band
- a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)
- a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)

The exam board require you to create your own "identity" for your artist or performer. You can use the title of the track but you must produce a new original branding for the artist or band. This must be constructed to reflect the genre and appeal of the performer.