THE H

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VIDEOS

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WHAT IS A MUSIC VIDEO?

They are short films depicting a song made for artistic purposes.

Mainly made and used as marketing devices used to promote record sales.

Use a wide range of video making techniques such as animation, live action filming, documentaries and abstract film.

Often interpret scenes from songs lyrics.

HISTORY

First came into prominence in 1980’s when MTV began and based their format on them although they existed a lot before then.

Before the 1980s they were described in a number of ways such as “illustrated song”, “filmed interest” “promotional clip or video”, “song video or clip” or film clip”.

FIRST DEVELOPMENT.

Edward B Marks and Joe Stern two sheet publishers in 1894 hired electrician George Thomas and others to promote their song “The Little Lost Child”, Thomas projected still images using a lantern similar to a performance, this became known as the “illustrated song” which is one of the first steps towards music videos.

TALKIES, SOUNDIES AND SOUNDS

The arrival of talkies in 1926 led to the production of many musical short films.

Early 1930s cartoons features musicians preforming hit songs on camera.

Warner brothers cartoons initially were fashioned around certain songs from their upcoming musical films.

Blues singer Bessie smith appeared in a film called ST. Louis blues (1929) featured a dramatized performance of the song and other musicians appeared in the shot.

Soundies that first appeared in 1940-47 were musical films that included short dance sequence similar to later music videos

In the 1940s musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs some of which were put together in the film called look out sister, Donald Clarke called these the ancestors of music videos

EARLY MUSIC CLIPS

Tony Bennet claimed in his autobiography to have created a music video when he was caught walking along serpentine in Hyde Park in 1965 as the clip used for his recording of the song “stranger in paradise”, sent to UK and US television stations.

The second music video of the story was set in the United States and starred Elvis Presley and was for the song Jailhouse Rock, disseminated in black and white images of the time.

Oldest example seems to be “ dame si do bytu” created in 1958.

PROMOTIONAL CLIPS

In the 1950s the scopitone (a visual jukebox) was invented in France and many short films were produced in France made by artists such as Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, and many more.

In 1961 for the show Singalong Jubilee Manny Pitison began pre recording and then went and taped various visuals with music lip syncing and edited video and audio together.

Kenneth Angers 1964 short film Scorpio rising used popular songs instead of dialogue

In 1965 the Beatles began making promotional clips known as “filmed inserts” so they could promote records without making personal information.

Concert films began being realised in the 1960-s, as early as 1964 with the T.A.M.I show.

Some of the first music videos appeared in the 1960s which included Nancy Sinatra’s song “these boots are made for walking” and in June 1968 by Elvis Presley in order to promote albums, Elvis did them for his songs “if I can dream” and “trouble guitar man”

BEGINNINGS OF MUSIC TELEVISION Australian TV shows countdown and sounds

were huge in promoting music videos and in establishing their importance.

Top of the pops began playing music videos in the 1970s, so a good video would increase a songs sales

Video concert hall launched in 1979 was the first nationwide music programme in the United States and one of the first to show music videos in an art form.

RISE OF DIRECTORS

Music videos has seen the rise of directors such as Chris Cunningham, Michael Gondry, Spike Jones, Flora Sismondi, Stephanie Sednanoui, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams.

Romanek directed two of the three most expansive music videos of all time which were Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream (reportedly cost £7 million) and Madonna’s bedtime story (reportedly cost £5 million)

Walter Stern directed “fire starter” by The Prodigy, bitter sweet symphony by The Verve, and “teardrop” by Massive Attack

During this period a number of MTV channels began broadcasting around the world including, MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996 and MTV Mandarin in 1997, also MTV2 in 1997 showing more adult music videos.

THE INTERNET’S INVOLVEMENT The website Ifilm which that showed short videos

including music videos launched in 1997.

By the mid 2000S MTV had stopped showing music videos in favour of reality television shows that were more popular.

YouTube launched in 2005 and this had a great effect on the distribution of music videos, as it made the viewing of them online much easier and similar technology began being used by Google Videos, Yahoo Video, Facebook and Myspace.

LYRIC VIDEOS

This is a music video where the words to the song are the main elements to the video, examples of these include:

R.E.M Fall On Me

Prince Sing of the Times

George Michael- Praying for times

Other artists who have made them include- CE-LO-Green, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Muse and Blur.

CENSORSHIPFirst video to be banned by MTV was Queen’s “body language” due to skin

and sweat and not enough clothing was worn by certain members.

The dance segment in Michael Jacksons “black and white” was cut after it showed him wrongly touching himself.

Madonna is the star mostly linked to video censorship, offense over how she showed her sexuality surrounded clips such as lucky star and like a virgin, controversy over the subject of teenage pregnancy was caused in the video for papa don’t reach and many other controversies have been caused.

In 2000 the video to Rock DJ by Robbie Williams was banned due to graphic content as it shows him stripping naked.

In 2004 the video to This Love by Maroon 5 caused controversy after it shows Adam Levine and his then girlfriend in intimate scenes.

In 2010 the video for Hurricane by thirty seconds to mars was banned as it contained scenes of nudity, violence and sex.

There has been many more controversies surrounding music videos

MUSIC VIDEO STATIONS

There have been a wide variety come out over the years:

4music Channel O TVU

40 TV Channel A UTV

Alt TV Channel AKA VEVO

Imf TV NME TV VH1

Juice TV Pallidia VH1 Classic

Kerrang TV PMC VH1 Soul

Kiss TV Q TV Much More

MAD TCN Much Music

MCM TMF CMC

MTV Temp TV CMT

MUSIC VIDEO SHOWS

There have been a variety come out over the years

ABC ROCKS Friday Night Videos

106/Park Loaded

School house rock Rage

Soundwaves Night Tracks

Kid songs New York hot Tracks

Much on demand TRL

Video Hits Australia Music TV

Video Hits Canada U choose 40

Kidsongs Top of the pops