What is a music video? Heres a Wikipedia deifinition..
A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song.
Modern music videos were made and used to prommote the sale of music recordings (so basically the song).
Music videos were first created in the early 1980's and have developed through time to what we see today on the screens and popular programmes such as MTV. The devlopment through the ages looks a little like this..
>Illustrated songs
>Soundies and Talkies
>Musical shorts and Musical film
>Promotional videos
>Music television
>Music on internet
>Lyric videos
Illustrated songs
In 1984 sheet music writers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired an electrician called George Thomas and many other people to promote their song; "The Little Lost Child". They did this by using a majic lantern and projecting a series of images on a screen in many performances of the songs. This became very popular and was known as Illustrated song.
Soundies, Talkies, Shorts and Films
In 1926 the arrival of 'Talkies arrived which gave oppertunity for the use of many 'Musical Short Films'. Vitaphone shorts (which were short films created by Warner Bros with a very popular sound system, and the first of its kind) Featured many artists and bands along with dancers. Max Fleischer Intorduced short sing-along cartoons called screen song which allowsthe audience to follow a bouncing ball on top of thewords being sung which is near enough karaoke. In the 1930's the idea of cartoons performaed a composers song arose and the era of animated short films such as loony tunes and mickey mouse had begun. Musical films were also important to the history of music videos as musical films such as 'Material Girl' by Madonna and such films as 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson became popular in Hollywood featuring the artist miming the words and a number of dance sequences with full out costumes entertained the audiences between 1930 and 1950.Promotional Videos
In the late 1950s the Scoptiphone was invented in france which is also known as A 'Jukebox' which is an impoertant part of history and is still used today in old dinners. Moving on, in the late 1972-73 promotional music videos were a way in which artists displayed their music publically and increased the m-number of sales that the record has which has the music video. These types of clips were to be shown in TV shows such as 'Top Of The Pops'. This show promoted millions of songs to thw younger generation so that it would become popular and widen its target audience.
Music Television
1974-1980 was the beginning of a new era for music videos, as it was the start of music televisionAnd this is where the television programmes such as 'Top Of The Pops' really comes into play. This programmewas british and was very well known by the younger generation. These tyoes of shows were purely based on the artist and very often showed different music videos so that viewers at home could watch it and the song would become popular. Soon after that, alot of other channels of Sky TV are dedicated to music videos such as 'Smash Hits' 'Viva' 'Kerrang' and many more. Because music videos are so popular, MTV created a whole award to it with the ward of 'Best Music Video'.
Music On Internet
many sites on the internet are dedicated or have parts that are dedicated to music videos such as the release of 'iFilm' in 1997, 'Napster' which is now seen as illegal because it usesfile to file sharing without paying for it which breaks the laws of copyright. A very popular way to find music videos on the web is 'Youtube' which is a channel were anyone can upload videos. On youtube there is a channel dedicated to every performaing artist or band called 'Vevo' This channel lets the audiences know that the music video they are watching is the original video, and also has its fair bit of advertising. This part of youtube gives you a link to ITunes if the like the song so you can buy it instantly and all the big companies make moneyfrom it.
Lyric Videos
A lyric video is one in which the words to the song are the main element of the video. In 1987, Prince released a video for his song "Sign o' the Times". The video featured the song's words pulsing to the music presented along with abstract geometric shapes; an effect created by Bill Konersman
A lyric video may be released separately by a music label prior to the more usual video featuring the artist. Cee Lo Green and Katy Perry have released lyric videos.
