A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of music/song. Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. Not only do music videos help to sell millions of records but they're produced to give a performance and to impress their audience. It helps to find out the main audience watching and listening to the band/artists music videos.
MTV (music television) was launched in the early 1980's. mtv was started and based around the medium of music videos. Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action, filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos do not interpret images from the song's lyrics, making it less literal than expected.
In the last few decades the importance of music videos has dramatically changed, as nowadays the music video is almost as important as the song. Music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. The term "music video" first became popular in the early 1980s. before then, these works were described in various terms; "filmed insert", "promotional film", "promotional clip" or "film clip". In the entertainment industry, music videos were simply known as MTVs, as this was the channel that was responsible for bringing music videos to popularity.
Music videos- medium with many sub-genres/ postmodern styles?
Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subculture by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres.
They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist.
Music videos are postmodern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona.
they don't have to be literal representation of the song or lyrics.
Visual innovation:
in the 1960's era, in france, the scoptine a.k.a a visual jukebox was invented. this is when many short films were produced by many french artists to accompany their songs, these were created by artists such as serge gainsbourg, francoise hardy, jacques brel and jaques dutronc. after then it spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. In 1961 Ozzie Nelson directed and edited the video of "Travelin' Man" by his son Ricky Nelson. It featured images of various parts of the world mentioned in the Jerry Fuller song along with Nelson's vocals. In 1964, Kenneth Anger's experimentalshort film, Scorpio Rising used popular songs instead of dialog.
Most music tracks were taped in-studio on stage, and the location shoot "videos" were to add variety. One of the earliest performance clips was The Animals's 1964 hit "House Of The Rising Sun". This high-quality color clip was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set; with the group lip-synching.
Here is a the music video produced by the Animal's in 1964:
The Beatles were also one of the very first bands/artists to produce a music video to accompany their song. This was produced in 1964, their song was A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester, and this was the first of many that they intended to shoot. The feature film was Shot in black-and-white and presented as a mock documentary, it was a loosely structured musical fantasia interspersing comedic and dialogue with musical sequences. The musical sequences furnished basic templates on which countless subsequent music videos were modeled.
Here is the very first music video produced by the Beatles:
The Beatles then moved on to produce another great music video to promote thmeselves and their song. this track was called HELP! and was produced in 1965. although their first video was good this one was alot more lavish as it was filmed in colour in london and on international locations.
in the same year (1965) the Beatles began making promotional clips a.k.a filmed inserts, for distribution and broadcast in other countries—primarily the USA, this was so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. At Twickenham Film Studios, The Beatles videotaped 10 black & white promo films, all produced by a British production company Intertel. Many clips were aired on "Top of the Pops" in the UK, and two were aired on "Thank Your Lucky Stars."
At the same time the Beatles were doing this another well-known band called The Byrds began using the same strategy to promote their singles in the United Kingdom, starting with the 1965 single "Set You Free This Time". By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966, their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated.
In May 1966 they filmed two sets of colour promotional clips for their current single "Rain" / Paperback Writer" all directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who went on to direct The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and The Beatles final film Let It Be. The studio clips were straightforward performance films shot at Abbey Road Studios, especially for broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show and prefaced by a spoken introduction from Ringo.
The location clips are considerably more elaborate and use vibrant colour footage shot on location. Both clips are notable for their use of hand-held camera work, rhythmic editing, slow motion shots and reversed film. The "Paperback Writer" clip is more conventional, with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison lip-synching and miming playing their instruments. The "Rain" clip marked a major advance in stylistic terms; it uses some colour shots common to both clips but is also intercut with monochrome reductions of the Abbey Road studio footage, making it one of the first examples of this device in music video. Most notably, apart from a few brief shots the "Rain" clip virtually abandons any pretense of performance and has no obvious narrative structure.
The beggining of music television:
In the United Kingdom music television really started in the late 70's when the bbc aired a show called 'Top of the pops' they began playing music videos to increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. this was the show that helped music legend David Bowie get his first UK number one in a decade due to the work of director David Mallets eye catching promo for 'Ashes to Ashes'and this was aired ont the show.
WHO INVENTED THE MUSIC VIDEO?
Top of the pops, a show created by the BBC, was considered to be the first to have brought the music video to advertisment. This was because 'Queen' a popular rock band were unable to appear on the show so therefore there music video was created for bohemian rhapsody, so it could be broadcasted on the show instead.
alot of this information was from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video
http://a2timmedia2010.blogspot.com
