Music Videos are produced as a way to promote an artist and their music what they release into the charts. Music videos started off as promotional films which you would buy or where shown in the cinema. The films showed the artists acting and also performing many of their songs, artist’s songs were also played in cartoons in the 1930’s.
Animation was a start and many cartoons in the early 1930’s featured popular musicians performing their songs. Early animated films by Walt Disney contained famous classical pieces for example ‘Fantasia’ and ‘Silly Symphonies’. Warner Brothers still to this day use artist’s songs in ‘Looney Tunes’ and ‘Merrie Melodies’. The WB cartoons where usually based on songs from upcoming WB films.
In 1965 Bob Dylan released his promotional film ‘Don’t Look Back’ directed by D.A. Pennebaker and was filmed in black and white and includes a clip which was all done in one shot using cards with the main words of the song which is been played. This was one of the first promotional films produced and was a great success. From here more music promos were made.
The Beatles also released their first promotional film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in 1965 which was directed by Richard Lester. This film was also a great success and is also shot in black and white and contains dialogue and musical sequences. Also in 1965 The Beatles released their second film ‘Help!’ which was a big improvement from the first film as this was shot in colour. The Beatles began to make promotional clips in which they would be distributed and broadcast in other countries so they could promote themselves and their music without showing their faces. In November 1965 The Beatles videotaped 10 black and white promo films which were filmed by the British production company Intertel.
Michael Jackson’s ‘THRILLER’ took music videos to a whole new level, lasting fourteen minutes and costing $500,000, been quoted as the most influential music video of all time. Jackson’s promotional film helped more black American artists gain more airtime on MTV. It was influenced by dance sequences from Hollywood musicals. Madonna’s video ‘Material Girl’ from 1985 is one of the best know videos to be based on a Hollywood musical which is said to be based on Jack Coles ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ from the film ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’ from 1953 starring Marilyn Monroe.
Promotional films were also filmed at gigs. Top of the pops was a UK show that started showing music videos in the late 1970’s but where restricted on their use of music videos but in ways this was good because good videos increased sales because people could not wait to see them again, for example David Bowie who got his first UK number one in 1980 for the very popular ‘Ashes to Ashes’ which was a great promo produced by David Mallet. Also in the 1980s it was MTV that showed how important music videos where. Buggles ‘Video killed the radio star’ was filmed in 1981. It was the first music video to be played on MTV. In 1985 MTV created VH1 which featured much calmer music, then in 1986 Channel 4 started broadcasting ‘The Chart Show’ which showed none stop music videos. In 1992 MTV started naming the directors of music videos to get them more recognised. Many directors had an individual, recognisable style and worked in high production values these where usually called Auteurs. An example of this is Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ which was directed by Jonathon Glazer in 1996 and shot in Black and White. Most Auteurs usually ended up working in film or advertising.
In the mid-2000s MTV had many sister channels that showed reality TV shows and began to focused more on genre of chart/pop music. Convergence became very important. In 2005 the internet became video friendly and the famous website ‘YouTube’ was created. YouTube was so successful that it began to affect production values of music videos and the ways that they were marketed. In 2009 30 seconds to mars’s video ‘Kings and Queens’ was released and uploaded on YouTube and all in the same day gained over one hundred million views, forty million on MySpace and was featured video of the week on I-Tunes and was one of the most downloaded videos to be shown earning it to have four nominations at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. This made them the most nominated rock artist in VMA history in one year. Lady Gaga’s music video was the most viewed on YouTube in 2010 gaining over 350 million votes by 2011 But it was then later beaten in early 2011 by Justin Bieber’s video ‘Baby’ which gained 500 million views. The internet is the main income growth for record company produced music to this present time.
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