History Of Music Videos

Early years of music video

Music videos have been around since 1920s where Jazz music was very popular, artists such as Bessie Smith designed short videos to accompany her songs; the lack of technology shows as it consists on one long takes.

One of the first credited music videos was made by Bob Dylan in 1965 with Subterranean Homesick Blues as a segment for D.A Pennebakers film 'Don't look back'.




Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was released in 1975 along with the music video, both the song and video were extremely credited. Queen marked the beginning of the video era and set the language for modern music video, the music video was considered to be the first to successfully use visual effects within their video.

Fatboy Slim 'Praise You' is an example of a home video style music video with no cuts.


Most dance videos don't feature the artist in, Wiley's 'Money In My Pocket' is an example of a one take video where the artist is not featured.  One take videos can be difficult to film as everything has to be precise and on time, if something goes wrong the take will have to be redone completely.

Wiley - 'Cash In My Pocket' from Ben Moulden on Vimeo.

Technical Codes

Cinematography

Camera movement may follow the movement of the performance, however it may be used to create a dynamic feel to stage the performance like circling the band as they perform. Close-ups predominate and create a sense  of intimacy for the viewer, it also emphasises the commodity on sale.


Editing 

The most common form of editing associated with the music promo is the fast out montage, rendering many of the images making it impossible to grasp on the first viewing and ensuring multiple viewing. There are also videos which use slow pace and gentler transitions to establish mood. 

Development of technical codes

The key innovation in the development of the modern music videos was the recording and editing processes along with the development of a number of related effects such as green/blue screen. The advent of high quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply in comparison to the relatively high cost of film.


In the 1990s, a number of new technical codes were established and became a 'game changer' in the industry.


-The most common form of editing (associated with the music promo) being fast cut montage.

- Many images shown in quick succession, impossible to grasp on the     first viewing.

- Split screen

- Colourisation

- Non-representation