A music video is a short film integrating both a song from an artist as well as visuals, usually made to promote an artist. It is a moving image which can be performance based, narrative based or concept based. Music videos use a range of styles to make the short film, as well as having lots of editing techniques. Videos include animation, documentaries, live action filming, lyric videos and many special effects but can also be a mixture of these. Other music vides may no have a set concept, and may just be a video version of the song’s live performance which is mainly used in the rock music genre.
In 1894 sheet music publishes promoted their song “The Little Lost Child” and one of the men projected a series of still imagines on a screen at the same time as live performances were happening. This then becqme a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, which were the firsts steps towards a music video.
1902- 1972
In this period of time was known as “The Phonoscene era” which combined chronophone sound recordings with chronograph film shots along with actors lip- synching to the sound. The sound and visuals were then synchronized by a mechanism patented by Leon Gaumont in 1902 in France.
1926- 1959
In this time many musical short films were produced due to the arrival of talkies and vitaphones shorts featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. Shorts were around six minuets long in duration and featured art deco style animations and backgrounds combined with a film of the performer singing. Max Fleischer who was an animation artist introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called screen songs, inviting audiences to sing along to popular songs by following the “bouncing ball” which is like a karaoke machine. Some cartoons by Warner Brother were based around music from musical films that will be coming out soonish after the cartoon. Short films then became very popular and many artists started to appear in their short films.
Short films also called promotional clips then became another early form of music video for the Panoram visual jukebox but this faded during the World War II.
1960- 1967- Visual innovation
A visual jukebox was then invented in France and this short films were produced which eventually spread to other countries.
1967-1973
During this time promotional clips grew in importance and lots an lots of artists and bands started to made this short films like The Rolling Stones and the Masters Apprentices.
1974- 1980
This was the beginning of music television in many countries for example in the United Kingdom shows like Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970’s.
1981- 1991
Music videos then went mainstream in 1981 the U.S video channel MTV launched. Later big videos were being shown to audiences like Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller”. MTV then launched VH1 channel featuring softer music and meant to cater to an older demographic than MTV.
1992- 2004
MTV begun listing directors with the artist and song credits, showing the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur’s medium.
2005-present
This is now where the internet has come into play becoming video friendly for example sites like youtube. This allows people to view professional music videos online as well as creating their own interpretation of a music video. Nowadays parodies of artists and bands are now produced by pro consumers.
The music videos contemporary purpose is primarily made as a marketing tactic intended to promote the music recordings to audiences and fans. It isn't just an advertisement for selling the actual songs but also for live concerts and other merchandise of the artist or bands. Lastly nowadays big media institutions are involved in making great music videos especially the main five Universal, Warner Brothers, BMG, EMI and Sony allowing for lots of finance to be put into these videos which are then distributed and shown helping the song go viral and become nationally well known gaining a high profit eventually.
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