What is a music video?
A music video is a short film which presents a visual presenation of a popular music song. MTV the music television station was originally launched in 1981 and played continuous music video programming without any specific conventional genre.
Roots of a music video can be found extremely early, as early as 1911, Alexander Scriabin wrote his first symphony; poem of Fire for orchestra and 'light organ'. There appeared to also be traces of animated films of Oskar Fischinger which were supplied with orchestral scores. As well as this the early animated efforts and production of Walt Disney were built around simply music, examples of this were Silly Symphonies, and the Warner Brothers cartoons, known as the Looney Tunes. A Blues singer named Bessie Smith also appeared in a short film called Saint Louis Blues back in 1929. this featured in dramatised performances of the hit song, it was later shwon in theatrues in 1932.
In 1938 Segei Eisenstein's film named 'Alexander Nevsky' featured extended scenes of battles which were choreograped by Sergei Prokofiev, this has been said to have set new standards to the use of music in film and has therefore been described as the first music video in film, as this was successful, popular and therefore realised throughout the media industry, it offered a new form of entertainment.
1940- Throughout this era early forms of music videos were produced and labelled as 'Soundies', these were one song films and were made for the visual panoram jukebox, focusing on majority jazz musicians and at times torch singers, comedians and dancers.
What is a Parnoram Jukebox?
Before the Soundie, dramatic movies did typically have a musical interval, but the Soundie highlighted the importance of the music made, as people would concentrate purely on just the music, instead of the film itself. Many jazz performers appeared in these Soundie short films, some still available on video tapes or DVDs today. This brought alot to the music video in the way in which it developed a deliberate seperate focus on music. Technology had a huge influence on this as it created a specific focus on music, peoples interests would begin to grow.
A Parnoram jukebox consisted of roughly eight three-minute Soundies which entertained people and were popular in taverns or nightclubs.
1950-1954
More than 1000 short musical presentations were filmed for television fillers. The first short musical films made for television were Snader Telescriptions. Most of them were conventional pop but included rhythm, blues. jazz and country music.
1960
French technology developed for serial photography during the war which was adapted to create the Scopitone modern visual jukebox, this was very successful in France as it revealed bands playing. In comparison to the US however, the quality appeared vivid and unusual, partlu because the genres were explored differently also.
Timeline of inventions in music industry:
Music video timeline
- 1941: The Panoram Soundie is a jukebox Invented that plays short videoclips with music in the USA. Big hit in bars and clubs.
- 1956: Hollywood discovers the genre of music-centered films. Rock and roll films begin. (Rock Around the Clock, Don't Knock the Rock, Rock Pretty Baby. Famous Elvis Presley movies. Films began to integrate musical performances into a story, Engaging audience with the music and the lyrics.
- 1960: In France a re-invention of the Soundie, the Scopitone gains limited success.
- 1962: British Television invents a new form of music television. Shows like Top Of The Pops, started and became huge hits.
- 1964: The US-Television market adapts the format. Hullabaloo is one of the first US shows of this kind, followed by Shindig! (NBC) and American Bandstand.
- 1970: The record industry discovers these TV-Shows as a great opportunity to promote their artists. They focus on producing short "Promos", early music videos which started to replace the live performance of the artist on the TV-stage.
- 1975: Bruce Gowers directs the music video "Bohemian Rhapsody" for Queen. Today considered as a landmark in music video as it featured the complete visual grammar of today's music promos.
- 1981:A company known as American Express starts MTV, an experimental satellite channel broadcasting 24 hours of music videos. The first video played was The Bugglles "Video Killed the Radio Star". Today the start of MTV is commonly viewed as the "golden era" of music videos, focusing on popular culture.
- 1996: Popup video is first aired on VH1
- .People would disagree with this as many people see it as the death of the true artist, because now in order to be popular you must be physically appealing, it is now about image rather than vocals, MTV evokes this. A persona is now created and evolves around an interesting character which people may be able to either relate to, therefore understand and be interested in their lifestyle or background, or someone which may appear visually different and attract attention due to standing out; for example, Lady GaGa. This way she can then attract publicity and explain why she is how she is, which people eventually grow to admire and like. There are artists in the pop industry which emphasise and draw attention to their wild characteristics and image rather than the talent of singing, popstars such as kesha are an example of this. She sings about partying, drugs, drinking, living a nihilistic life, which attracts and appeals to a young teenage-adult audience.
You have made a start in describing some of the ways in which music videos have changed in the industry, but you still need to complete the timeline to show further understanding of the music industry.
ReplyDelete