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1894

History Of Music Videos. Double click me.

In 1894, an electrician called George Thomas and a few other people were hired to promote the song called 'The Little Lost Child' which was wrote by Edward B.Marks and Joe Stern, a sheet music publisher.

Title. Double click me.

This was an illustrated song and was the first step towards music videos. This was created by a sequence of still images being projected on a screen and then synchronized to live performances, this was done using a magic lantern.

A magic lantern was developed in the 17th Century.

1926

in 1926, sound films with synchronized dialogue were developed.

These were called 'talking pictures' which were known as 'talkies'. These resulted in numerous musical short films being made.

 

They were called 'shorts' and were around 6 minutes long and were played in cinemas before the feature film.

An example of this is 'St Louis Blues' a video made

in 1929 and it ran in cinemas until 1932  and Bessie Smith a Blues singer appearing in it. 

1920s-1930s

Screen songs were developed these are a series of sing along shorts. These were introduced by Max Fleischer an animation artist in 1929.

1930 to 1970

A 'bouncing ball' followed the lyrics on popular songs, this was done to encourage the audience to sing along. 

Popular musicians performed hit songs on cameras in live action sections during the 1930s in cartoons. Examples of this were Walt Disney's animated Fantasia and Silly Symphonies which were shorts and built around music. 

This was the introduction of Musical Films. Music fillms were introduced before music videos they were very influential. As a result classic Hollywood musicals from 1930s to the 1970s were imitated. 

These Hollywood musicals consisted of:

  • Daddy Long Legs, 1955

  • Damn Yankees, 1958

  • Pennies from Heaven, 1981

Daddy Long Legs Trailer 1955

1965-1967

This was the introduction to promotional clips. The Beatles started making thier promotional clips in 1965. This was to promote their record releases without having to present. The promotion would be distributed and broadcast in other countries, mainly in the USA. Top of the Pops aired many promotional clips in the UK.

Late 1970s

Damn Yankees Trailer 1958

Later examples of promotionals clips were made in colour. 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' that were made in early 1967 were directed by Peter Goldman and took promotional film format to a whole new height.

The advanced techniques used and added in post production included:

  • Dramatic Lighting

  • Colour Filtering

  • Reversed film and slow motion

  • Unusual camera angles and shots

Pennies From Heaven 1981

Penny Lane - Beatles

Top of the Pops was introduced this was a British Music Chart Television tv programme. In the late 1970s it began to play music videos but limited the amount of videos they could use.

1980s

MTV was launched. The date it was launched was the 1st August 1981. With the words 'Ladies and

gentlemen, rock and roll'.

The launch of the Apollo 11 was shown on MTV and the first space shuttle launch countdown with John Lack's voice spoken over it. 

The important acts of this era were:

  • Duran

  • Madonna

  • Michael Jackson

  • Bon Jovi

  • Prince

1990s

2000

MTV was showed in a different lights as they played a range of music that bought upon new forms of music video that were artistic, creative and amusing.

The music played in this era was :

  • Boyz II Men and Bell Div Divoe

  • Guns 'N' Roses, Metallica and Nirvana

  • New Kids on the Block, Michael Jackson and Madonna.

In mid 2000 MTV and other channels no longer showed music videos this was because they thought the audience would prefer to watch reality TV shows.

2010-2011

2005 was the launch of YouTube which was very popular because it made videos faster and easier to watch. 

Many music videos became very popular because of YouTube allowing them to gain a large amount of views. 

2010 - Lady Gaga's music video Bad Romance was the most viewed on YouTube with 130 milllion views which increased to over 350 million views by early 2011.

2011- Justin Bieber's music video 'Baby' broke the record with over 500 million views on YouTube. 

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