Music videos were not properly established until after the 1980’s but before that a lot happened to build up to it. The music video idea was developed from publishers Edward B.marks and Joe Stern who hired electrician George Thomas to promote sales of their song. He created a series of still images on a screen; this was called the illustrated song. The first early form of music videos were in the 1940s which were one-song films called “promotional clips” for the visual jukebox. These were short films of usually a band on a movie-set bandstand. Thousands of these were made but mostly of jazz musicians, torch singers and comedians.
In the 1950's more famous musicians like Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley started making short films and performed their songs with narrative. These stars played fictional characters and the backing track would usually be there songs. These short films had the nick name 'talkies'. In 1956 the television was introduced to people’s houses which gave artists the opportunity to not only play their short films at the cinema they could broadcast them on the TV. Another helpful way to promote the artist, this meant more people could view their promotional videos or short films.
In 1964 The Beatles (the world’s most famous rock and roll band) made a film/documentary filmed by dick Lester with a narrative which showed their fans what life like them is like without having to do a live performance. Within this narrative they travel from Liverpool to London to perform in a television broadcast. In this documentary/film they include random performances included so their fans could see them because they stopped performing for three years because of how famous they where they were getting threat's. The aim of this was so that fans could see the artist and also to promote the artist.
Bob Dylan's documentary ‘Don’t Look Back' filmed by D.A pennebecker,in 1965 was similar to what the Beatles did. It was a chance for his fans to see him perform and his three week tour around England. Promotional clips and short films including artists were growing in importance because they could be screened on TV when the artists couldn’t appear live. Other bands what used this promotional methods were Pink Floyd, The rolling stones, The kinks and the who.
In the 1970's Tv only had three coloured channels in which to choose from. In 1972 David Bowie's Spaceidty showed music promotional videos in a different light it had started to show that there are was different types of music videos by form. There was four types of form performance,narrative,interpretation of lyrics and abrast. All different types of music videos. One of these TV channels was BBC1 in which top of the pops was aired in 1975. This music programme ran weekly and consisted of performances from that week’s popular music artists. There was artists what had made music video clips to accompany songs for their performance.
After the success of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody the music video which cost them £4000 to film compared to the £40000 plus that it costs now. This video had great use of mise-en-scene because in this music video queen used good lighting what effected the performance. The costume they used created Queens image and the camera angles made the musicians look dominant. All of this as well as the same aim since the development of music videos. The aim to promote the musicians. The success of this promotional music video encouraged record companies to start doing regular promotional videos for artists single releases. This meant that your video could be shown on music shows like Top Of The Pops without the star having to be there. Some people even say that this video had begun the 'MTV age'.
In 1981 onwards music videos started to go mainstream thanks to The American video channel MTV (music television). After airing 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles MTV began to show music videos 24 hours a day but because there was not many music videos around it was just a loop of the same twenty videos a day. This meant that more music videos had to be produced By the mid 80's artists would base success over music videos because that would be the best way for music marketing.
In 1983 Michael Jacksons music video 'thriller' had a huge influence on music videos because other artists saw how successful it was. It was named the watershed for the music industry by society. It merged film making and music together. It had a narrative and fantastic mise-en-scene. VH1 was introduced in 1985,a music channel just like MTV but the genre of the music was softer and had a older music audience which widened the audience of music videos.
In 1986 Peter Garbriels music promotional video to 'sledge hammer' showed the development in effects in music videos. He used a lot more effect in his video which started to make music videos look less non-professional.
Beautiful South’s had a hit in 1989 what was played on MTV's channel. It was a self-reflective performance showing the band writing their song then performing it. The same aim as most music video was used being to let the fans have a opportunity to watch you perform.
The development of recording, editing equipment and visual effects such as changing the 35mm film to the medium film while others mixed film and videos.
In 1997 the website I film held music videos and short artist videos for fans to watch online. 'Napster' was a peer to peer file sharing programme which ran for three years from 1999. This promoted small independent artists with amateur music videos because it gave the opportunity for fans to share video files to friends. The most influential technological thing to happen to the development of music videos was the launch of you tube. This meant that you could view online music videos faster than having to download them of Napster. In 2005 iTunes opened which gave fans the opportunity to have a faster way to purchase music videos of the Internet. This became successful after one million video downloads after 25 days.
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