The history of music videos began in 1894 with synchronized slides to promote sheet music. In the 1920s, early musical short films were produced. Cartoons in the 1920s-1930s incorporated popular songs. Television allowed new artists exposure in the 1950s. The Beatles pioneered music videos in films in the 1960s. Promotional clips developed in the late 1960s. MTV launched in 1981 and greatly popularized music videos through the 1980s. New technologies like YouTube democratized music video distribution from the 2000s onward.

1. History of Music
Videos

2. 1894
• 1894 – George Thomas, an electrician and
many others were hired to promote sales of the
song ‘The Little Lost Child’ by sheet music
publisher Joe Stern and Edward B. Marks.
• The illustrated song was the first step towards
music videos and would later become a popular
type of entertainment. He created this by
projecting a sequence of still images on a
screen which was synchronized to live
performances, using a magic lantern. A magic
lantern is one of the earlier types of image
projectors that was developed in the 17th
century.

3. 1926
• In 1926, sound films with incorporated
synchronized dialogue came about. These were
called ‘talking picture’ better known as ‘talkies’
(among people of the early 1930s) which
resulted in numerous musical short films being
produced.
• They were exclusively ‘shorts’ which were
played in cinemas before the feature film and
were around 6 minutes long.
• Example: ‘St Louis Blues’ (1929) was a video
that ran in cinemas till 1932 with Blues singer
Bessie Smith appearing in it.

4. Cartoons
(1920s-1930s)
• Screen Songs is a series of sing along shorts that were
are a continuation of the earlier Fleischer series ‘Song
Car-Tunes’.
• It was introduced in 1929 by animation artist Max
Fleischer. It took popular songs of the day and added a
"bouncing ball" following the lyrics in order to encourage
audience sing longs. This is similar to what you would
see on a modern karaoke machine and is still used today
by people such as ‘High School Musical’ and ‘That’s So
Raven’ for younger audiences.
• Popular musicians performed their hit songs on camera
in live action sections during cartoons of the early 1930s.
Films that featured this were Walt Disney’s animated
Fantasia and Silly symphonies (shorts) which were built
around music. They both had interpretations of classical
pieces.

5. Cartoons Continued
• Cartoons such as ‘Merrie Melodies’ and
‘Looney Tunes’ by Warner Brothers were
originally formed around specific songs
from upcoming Warner Brother musical
films such as the Jazz Singer (1927).

6. The Influence of Musical Films
(1930 to 1970)
• Music films was another item that
came before music videos which is
why it is so important and influential.
As a result, classic Hollywood
musicals from 1930s to the 1970s
have been imitated. These consist of:
•1
•2
•3

7. Music & Television
• The term ‘music video’ was invented by disk jockey-
singer J.P. “The Big Popper” Richardson.
• Eventually these were distributed to and played by
the US and UK television stations. One example of
this is Tony Bennett’s recording ‘Stranger in Paradise’
(1953) which he played whilst being filmed walking
along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London. This
song began his career as an international artist.
• As television grew and became more popular, it
allowed new stars to be exposed that before
wouldn’t have due to Hollywood, normally requiring
established acts. This gave more people a better
opportunity to be successful and attract an
audience to the box office – much like proven acts
would have

8. The Beatles (1964)
• The Beatles was one of the most commercially successful and significantly
praised acts in the history of popular music. The English rock band formed
in Liverpool in 1960.
The Beatles starred in their first feature film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in 1964. It was
directed by Richard Lester and shot in black and white. It contained:
4. A loosely structured musical composition of free/improvisatory nature
5. Distribute musical sequences with comedic and dialogue ones
6. A sequence with furnished basic templates
• It was also a direct model for the Monkees (successful US TV series) which
consisted of similar film segments that were created to accompany various
Monkees songs.
In contrast, the 1965 feature ‘Help’ was filmed in London as well as on
international locations. It was also in colour except from the title track
sequence that was filmed in black and white. Help contained the following
features:
9. Contrasting close ups and long shots
10. Unusual shots and angles
11. Rhythmic cross-cutting
12. And a shot whereby it shows both a sharp focus in the background and a
completely out of focus figure in the background
Overall, there second feature was very extravagant and had been really
developed from their first feature, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.

9. Promotional Clips (1965-1967)
• In 1965, The Beatles started making promotional clips (filmed inserts) in
order to promote their record releases without being present.
• This would be distributed and broadcasted in other countries (mainly the
USA). In the UK, many promotional clips were aired on ’Top of the Pops’.
• Later examples of promotional clips were in colour. Those made in early
1967 such as ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ were directed
by Peter Goldman and took promotional film format to a whole new height.
The advanced techniques added in post production included:
• Dramatic lighting
• Colour filtering
• Reversed film and slow motion
• Unusual camera angles and shots
• which used were borrowed from underground and Avant Garde Film
These studio masterpieces, were impossible to be performed live by the group
so instead their psychedelic mini films portrayed the films in a generalized
way - rather than imitating the appearance of the performance.

10. Another Promotional Clips
WATCH THIS CLIP!!
• Bob Dylan ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ was
a monochrome clip, filmed by D. A. Pennebaker
in 1966. This was a technique whereby it
displayed images in black and white or in
varying tones of one colour only.
• Filmed inserts at this time, were produced by UK
artists and so could therefore be screened on TV
when the artist was unable to appear live.
• He deliberately avoided imitating performances
or presenting a narrative which is why he
showing key words from the song lyrics.

11. Top of the Pops (Late 1970s)
1964 - Top of the Pops was a British music
chart television programme. It began
playing music videos in the late 1970s
however, they limited the amount of
videos they could use. This effectively,
would make viewers want to see the video
again and in the long run, increase song
sales.

12. Promo Videos
• Promo videos are videos made in order to promote the
artist.
• Two very successful promo videos are:
• David Bowe – Ashes to Ashes
• Madness
• Ashes to ashes was directed by David Mallet in 1980
and was Bowie’s first UK number one
• Madness constructed their clips as ‘micro-comedic’ short
films that were shot on 16mm and 35mm.
• 1975: The promo video for Queen’s ‘Bohemian
Rhapsody’ is notable for being entirely edited and shot
on videotape. It was made by Bruce Gowers and shown
on Top of the Pops.

13. MTV (1980s) FIND VIDEO!!!
• MTV was launched on 1st August 1981 at 12.01am with the words
‘Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll’. It showed footage of the
launch of Apollo 11 as well as the first space shuttle launch
countdown with John Lack’s voice spoken over it. The original MTV
theme song was played after with numerous photos of Apollo 11
landing with the flag featuring MTV’’s logo changing various colours,
textures and designs.
• This was used as a conceit by MTV producers Fred Seibert and Alan
Goodman. They associated MTV with the most famous moment in
world TV history.
• Its launch began an era of 24/7 music on television and aired ‘Video
Killed the Radio Star’.
• By the mid 80s music videos would grow to play a dominant role in
popular music marketing.
• Important Acts of this period were:
6. Duran
7. Madonna
8. A
9. B
10. c

14. 1980s Improvements/Developments
In the development of the modern music videos, there were two key improvements which was:
• Video recording and editing equipment
• Visual effects
• This was very beneficial as the video recording and editing equipment, were both easy to
use and inexpensive. The arrival of high-quality colour portable video cameras and
videotape recorders resulted in promotional videos for pop acts to be produced cheaply
and quickly. Whereas, film was very cost effective. Some however, did continue to mix film
and video, whilst others preferred using 35mm film – throughout the development of the
field.
1983 – Michael Jackson – Thriller was released on ................................ And with it came a 14
minute long video that cost $500,000 to film. It was very successful as well as influential
and set new standards for production. Videos such as this and Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie
Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ influenced MTV to play videos by African Americans. However, this
would have been rare when MTV had just launched as it was primarily a rock music
orientated channel.
Successful Videos
• 1985: Dire Straits – Money for Nothing: Good use of computer animation made it an
international hit
• 1986: Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer: Good use of animation and special effects
techniques made it a phenomenal success.

15. 1980s Improvements/Developments
The development of music videos continued as directors alongside music
artists:
• Used more sophisticated effects
• Mixed film and video
• Included a storyline and plot
• Looked at the form and style of the genre in depth
There was also some non representational form videos whereby the music
artist was not shown however these were vary as the video was intentionally
made to promote the artist. Examples of these are:
• Queen – Under Pressure
• Duran Duran – The Chauffeur
• George Michael – Freedom
• David Bowie – (david mallet video)

16. MTV (1990s)
• The early 90s showed MTV in a different light as they played a
range of music that brought upon new forms of music video that
were artistic, creative, amusing and technically accomplished
compared to those in the 80s. The music varied from:
• R‘n’B groups – Boyz II Men & Bell Biv Divoe
• Metal and Hard rock acts – Guns ‘N’ Roses, Metallica & Nirvana
• Pop singers – New Kids on the Block, Michael Jackson & Madonna
• As well as introducing rappers MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice
• 1991-2001 – Napster – a peer to peer file sharing service which
allowed people to share their video files.
• 1992 – Film Directors got their start by MTV listing their names at
the bottom of the credits thanks to the pressure from the MVPA.
• 1997 – The website iFilm launched.

17. 2000
• By 2000, non representational form videos were very common.
Examples consist of:
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Mid 2000 – MTV alongside its sister channels (...................) no
longer showed music videos as they thought reality television shows
were more popular with their audience.
• 2005 – The Launch of YouTube made viewing videos faster and
easier. Similar technologies were used on other websites such as
MySpace, Facebook and Google Video. This was beneficial to many
artists as they became very successful through all the views.
• Example: Soulja Boy - & OK Go! – Here it goes again

18. 2010/2011
• As YouTube became an international success, many artists videos
became an even bigger success from a large amount of views.
• 2010 – Lady Gaga – Bad Romance was the most viewed on
YouTube with 130 million views which increased by early 2011 to
over 350 million views
• 2011 – This record was however broken to, Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’
that received over 500 million views.