Thursday, 21 October 2010
Music video presentation
I did this presentation on powerpoint, then uploaded it to my slideshare account to get the link for my blog.
The powerpoint talks through a basic describtion of a music video and the three types;
-narrative
-performance
-concept
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
History of the music video
A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of music. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 80s, these works were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip" or "film clip". In Chinese entertainment, music videos were simply known as "MTVs" because the network was responsible for bringing music videos to popularity in that country. Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming,documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos do not interpret images from the song's lyrics, making it less literal than expected.
Source: Banks, Jack (1996)Early example of a music video; St Louis blue's – Bessie smith 1929
Blues singer Bessie smith, appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song.
Music Video's are often used as promotional devises, to brand the artist therefore they are sometimes referred to as 'promotional video's or simply promo's.
The music video became popular when MTV exploded onto the music scene in the early eighties, Graduating from stark videos from the sixties and seventies that featured bands strumming away on gaudy sound studio sets, MTV music-videos incorporated story elements. But debunking the traditional role of music underscoring a film's story, film's role in the music-video was to support the music - a crucial difference between music-videos and other forms of film. New and exciting ways to film a song's story or essence quickly developed so that music stars would stand out. A video's originality could lead directly to the popularity of a song, but the song always took precedence.
History: The history of the modern music video has its roots in the early 1960s with The Beatles first major motion picture, 'A Hard Day's Night'. This 1964 Beatles movie included musical segments that resemble today's music videos. That same year, the band began filming short promotional films for their songs which were then aired on television variety shows.
By the time the band stopped touring in 1966, they used the promotional films to tour for them. Soon it was common place for artists to do this, and bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys were also filming promotional films.
The first music videos of the modern era were produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for 'Saturday Night Live' in 1979. In 1981, he released 'Elephant Parts', the first video album and first winner of a Grammy for music video. A further experiment on NBC television called 'Television Parts' was not successful, due to network meddling (notably an intrusive laugh track and corny gags).
In the information technology era, they are now just as popular as songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tape and DVD. Growing sales of videos on the DVD format led to a 33% rise for music-videos worldwide in 2002, according to the first worldwide music-video statistics report released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry(IFPI).

pops to promote a single created an
environment of innovation and
competition amongst bands and record labels as t shows producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use- therefore a good video would increase a dongs sales as viewers hoped to see the video again the following week.