History Of Music Videos

The history of music videos dates right back to 1894 when George Thomas, an electrician at the time, along with many others were hired by 'sheet music'  to promote the sale of their song - 'The Little Lost Child'.

Through the use of a magic lantern, Thomas was able to project a series of small images onto a screen, in sync to live performances, which proved to be a form of popular entertainment, known as the illustrated song. This was the first step for music videos.

In 1926 however is where music videos really took off with the arrival of talkies where many short films were produced. They were labelled 'shorts' and featured in cinemas as a short film before the main film started. For example St Louis Blues a famous videos broadcasted until 1932 with Blues singer Bessie Smith featuring in it.

Soundies were musical films that often included short dance sequences and were produced from 1940-47.
Musical films were important in the development of music videos. Many well known music videos have imitated and took inspiration from classic hollywood musicals. For example Madonnas music video for the song Material Girl, was closely influenced by the musical featuring Marlyn Munroe - Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend.

Promotional clips were introduced in the 1950s. The scopitone, which was a musical jukebox, invented in France and produced by french artists such as Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel. An example of a promotional clip is Bob Dylans song Subterranean Homesick Blues. This song was a monochrome clip filmed by D.A. Pennebaker in 1966.

In the late 1970s the British television programme Top of the Pops aired. Which gave viewers an insight to the videos as they were not able to view them on YouTube! Promo videos were made in order to promote the artist, a famous promo video is David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes.

!980s MTV aired which really took music videos to the next level.

in the 1980s music videos improved and developed massively through the use of video recording and editing equipment, and visual effects. One of the biggest and most successful music videos of all time: Michael Jackson - Thriller which was a 14 minute video that cost $500'000 to make, in spite of this it was a huge success raking in millions of dollars. This song also encouraged MTV to publish videos of African Americans.

In the 1990s music videos were shown in a different light as videos were more artistic and creative. This included videos from R&B groups such as Boyz 2 Men and Rock songs from bandss such as Nirvana.

2000s saw the rise of the internet. Video sharing went huge through the use of YouTube Google and Facebook and MySpace. Here songs would go viral and become internet sensations, with songs such as Crank That by Soulja Boy. Video sharing is still huge today and it allows artists such as Justin Bieber to broadcast themselves to record labels in order to be signed.

Analysis Of Other Videos

After doing some research into Andrew Goodwins theory, I decided to do some research into music videos to see how it applys.

A music video i chose to analyse was 50 Cent - I ain't gonna lie.

1. Genre characteristics 

There are many aspects of genre characteristics throughout this music video. One is the female protagonist being portrayed in the male gaze as a sex icon. We see this with her gold bikini on which also represents wealth and fame which is another characteristic of the hip-hop genre. Furthermore the images of the artist with a gold chain on represents 'rags-to-riches', however the fact that he has his hood up represents that he is still street smart. These are all obvious genre characteristics.

2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals

This characteristic is very clear in this video, it is very obvious from the outset what the plot is and what the message the song is aiming to give out. An example of this is when the artist is singing about buying the female protagonists expensive shoes, we then see a shot straight away of the shoes which give a clear direct link/message.

3. Relationship between music and visuals

This is used effectively in a way that we see the beat to the music being in time with the editing cut shots. Also the fast editing cuts around the money helps to set the mood of the song and links a direct message to the genre.

4. Brand image and demands of the record label

The brand image is emphasized a lot with the strong links to wealth and power. Also most of the shots are of the artist, and there is a mix of close ups which demonstrate emotion, whilst there are medium shots and low angle shots which reinstates power. This will give the record label a chance to brand their image whilst also giving the artist the chance to develop his image too.

5. References to voyeuristic treatment of women.
This point is very evident in this video as is it evident throughout the genre of hip-hop. We see in this video the female protagonist wearing a bikini in the pool and images of her in underwear. This indicates voyeurism. Furthermore the clothing she wears is very provocative, the colour red she is wearing connotes sexual references. 

6. Intertextual references
There wasn't really many intertextual references in this music video.

Props

I don't plan on there being many props in my video despite shots of the protagonist on the skateboard.

Location

History of music

History of Music

Music is the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds or both to form a harmony and expression of pure emotion. The first ever evidence of music goes back to Prehistoric times which uses flutes based out of carvings from bones and various types of string instruments.