Origins of the Music Video:

A music video is a 3-5 minute piece of edited recorded footage, usually illustrating a short film, or an amount of recorded photography which accompanies a piece of music, generally used for advertising purposes, for example advertising the actual song itself and publicising the artist. Music videos have varied purposes and can be created within a numerous of techniques, in my opinion music videos rely highly on “narcissistic” as within the “glamorous” world of music one must be obsessed with themselves to achieve a professional musical lifestyle. An artist must exceed confidence therefore be narcissistic. Narcissistic is a post modern feature again another quality I believe music videos are highly dependant on, post modernism itself cannot be defined as one feature however numerous. Eclecticism I believe is the strongest post modern feature a music video must rely on, a wide range of influences, contributions and techniques. Also music videos rely on an Active audience “The assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual, and cannot be made objective by an author or narrator: an assumption of an intelligent and active audience”: Intertextuality “an authors borrowing and transformation of a prior text” and Bricolage “a technique where works are constructed from various materials available”. Animation footage can be included within a music video as well as flash formatted files, simple drawing animations: rotoscoping. Live footage of the artist singing within a concert and a video may also include a short narrative illustrating or promotion a film. Some music videos include a mixture, and use Bricolage as it has been constructed from various materials in which are available and accusable for an artist/ producer to use. A typical convention of a music video is to have the footage linking with the analysis of the lyrics for example using candles to represent religious connotations if biblical references are within the lyrics. However the codes and conventions of music videos are sometimes challenged, and a certain narrative or picture doesn’t show a direct consistency with the lyrics. Music videos are the medium intended to appear directly to youth subcultures through reinforcing generic elements of music genres, again emphasising on the intent and dependency within post modern features.

Through to the advance within digitisation, music and how it is and has been portrayed has changed during the decades. Music videos soured with popularity due to the BBC’s Top of the Pops, the establishment and popularity of Top of the Pops allowed music videos to come into prominence within the late 70s and early 80s, MTV based their format around the medium which allowed the music video to engage with an audience and in theory to be born and invented. It wasn’t until the late 70s and early 80s that video recordings advanced within popularity, before that however broadcasters would record TV programmes on 2 inch video tapes. Technologies have also advanced due to the impact of miniaturisation, vinyl records miniaturising through to CDS and Ipods etc. The increase of technology has allowed music videos to be watched within an Ipod format; therefore music videos are more accessible which allows a higher demand for them to be created. The impact and change within technology has advantaged many music label records, Sony for example, Sony uses proliferation whilst mass producing their CDS as they are produced faster, as well as cheaper. Sony takes advantage of recent technologies and releases their singles digitally through the use of Itunes and YouTube. Watching videos on YouTube or social networking sites allow them to create a strong fan base and to interact with an active audience. After digital production, the CDS are advertised and then distributed. Institutions advertise particular songs through the use of synergy, for example music being placed within a different format and onto a soundtrack video game to target a specific audience, i.e. a rock themed genre. An example of how Sony has used Synergy is shown within the film Hitch, where the music production has been placed over film production, to advertise one another (vertical integration) The film advertises the song; therefore if an audience likes the film they are likely to buy the song as well as advertising the artist and actor Will Smith. The same was done with the completion of the Madonna music video promoting “Die another day”. The video is a direct inter textual reference, the video portrays Madonna within the James Bond role that of a spy. The imagery conveys interrogation and torturing, emphasising on the protagonist and antagonist within the roles.

The Beatles were the creators of the first music video, or in fact the one which can be credited for as it was in fact used as a promotional tool, to advertise and promote The Beatles. The Beatles achieved wide world fame within the music industry by 1965. Their popularity had ridden to an extreme and through to that popularity they didn’t have the time to appear on television programmes and shows throughout the world in which institutions wanted them to. Due to the high demand of audience and customers, The Beatles made a series of short promotional films designed specifically for television producers and broadcasters throughout the world. The Beatles found appearing on live TV and doing performances reparative and general, they felt it interfered with their creativity and freedom in which they had within studio recordings. The promotional films were iconoclastic humour and they were in fact a sense of fun however they do appear within more sophisticated forms in “Firm Help”. Within 1966, 19-20 May they filmed further promotional films for “Rain” and “Paperback Writer”, the videos were assembled in both black and white and coloured edits. This alone was a transformation within the development of music video however European channels were still within the very early elements of colour, therefore seeing something that had never been created before and being within colour was revolutionary within the specific time period. Britain’s first colour broadcast came with BBC2s transmission of the 1967 Wimbledon tournament. As it did then and as it does now, the music industry strives of competition, The Beatles filmed various differential promotional videos, each being different for competitors therefore rivals could emphasise on having so called exclusives with The Beatles. “Strawberry fields forever” within 1967 marked an evolutionary breakthrough within the industry of short films and music video production. January 1967, The Beatles recorded a single promotional film for each of the songs, for the first time, both of the music videos were created without any pretence of performing the song, therefore the feel of the songs storyboard and narrative illustrated the action. As I said earlier the work within the videos improved and establishes a sophisticated approach unlike the early music videos, however saying that music videos were entirely new within the market, therefore codes and conventions were non existent. The cinematography was “impressively artistic” and again this began a revolutionary start for music videos. “Penny lane” was one of their more sophisticated music videos, directed by Peter Foldmann, a Swedish friend of Klaus Voormann. “The magical mystery tour” was the closest to a feature length music video, unfortunately it was deeply criticized by critics, and was unfairly viewed by many as a “self indulgent mess” (Stated above: Music videos depend heavily on post modern features Narcissistic” which brought a halt to The Beatles TV industry career. The music is vintage Beatles and seen as a prototype music video. Overall they produced simplistic; sophisticated and individual music videos, and were the beginning of the music video industry.

The History of Music Videos: Due to lack of technologies within the 1890s music videos were extremely different to how they are now, now differential ranges of editing and mise en scene techniques are available to transform footage and make them surreal and post modern. Now artists depend on post modern features and creative futuristic technique. Within 1894 “The little lost child” published by Edwards B, Marks and Joe Stern, was one of the first so called “music videos”. A series of projected still images on a screen were used of live performances as well as simultaneous images, apparently this was to become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the so called first step to music video. I believe that even to this day and stage, the projected images and the features from “The little lost child” are used within music videos. Performers use live video footage to create verisimilitude, I believe that this has been adapted from the early ages of music videos. In 1926 was the arrival of the “Talkies” this was when many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands, vocalists and dancers which was produced by the institution Warner brothers. Spooney Melodies within 1930 were the first true music video series. “Shorts” was six minutes in duration and featured stylistics as art deco, style animations and a range of backgrounds combined with film or the performer singing. Animation artist Max Fleischer created and introduced sing-along short cartoons called “Screen Songs”, this allowed audiences to sing along to popular songs by “Following the bouncy ball”, again this stylistic has been adapted and used within recent music videos and films, take the musical Mamma Mia released June 30^th 2008 and directed by Phyllida Lloyd. The success of Mamma Mia was so strong that they released a cinema sing along version. Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brother’s films. Warner Brothers also produced the cartoon "Three Pigs in a Polka", set to Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theatres. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Later, in the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video. Another early form of music video was one-song films called "promotional clips" made in the 1940s for the Panorama visual jukebox. These were short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie-set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of "soundies" were made, mostly of jazz musicians, but also of torch singers, comedians, and dancers. Before the soundie, even dramatic movies typically had a musical interval, but the soundie put the music in the forefront; virtually all known jazz performers appeared in soundie shorts. The Panoram jukebox with eight three-minute soundies was popular in taverns and night spots, but the fad faded during World War II.