What is a music video?

A music video is a film which accompanies a song, they are made for promotional or artistic purposes. 
Music video's started in 1984, of course not like the modern videos you see today, the 1984 music video was a collection of still images which were projected onto a screen whilst the live performance was happening. It was Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern who decided to make the first music video to their song The Little Lost Child, it would be George Thomas who made their vision come onto the screen. 

In 1902, it would be Leon Gaumont who made the next step in music video history. The phonoscene was the first sound film, it was a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film with actors lip syncing. This was the first sign of the convention lip syncing that you now see in a vast amount of music videos.The last phonoscene video was in 1917.

In the years after 1917 as technology developed so did music videos. In 1926 many more musical short films were being produced and music videos started to feature the bands, artists and dancers. In 1929 Bessie Smith made a two reel called St. Louis Blues and it was one of the first dramatized music videos. In 1930 Max Fleischer an animation artist created a series of sing a long short cartoons. It was in 1940 when Walt Disney made an cartoon film to a classical music piece. The increase in television lead to more music videos being made. In 1959 Tony Bennett's music video of his song Stranger In Paradise was played on television in the UK and US. He then claimed his video was the first ever music video. 

It would be The Beatles in the 1950's-1960's with their videos of A Hard Days Night, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever that took a move into how modern videos are today. They started to construct narrative and visual vocabulary in their music videos, and started to use conventions, shots, lighting and editing from films.

Again it would be the increase in technology that developed music videos even more. By the 1970's and 1980's there was an increase in colour television and the technology of cameras and filming was becoming a lot more advanced. Around this time artists were producing bigger and better music videos for commercial and promotion of themselves, this led to a lot more money being invested into music videos.

Some examples of music videos which changed music video history in this era are Alfred Yankovic's music video Weird Al Yankovic, which brought humour into music videos. Michael Jacksons Thriller which introduced extended narrative and making your music video into a short film. And Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer music video which introduced using special effects and animation.

Once again it is the increase in technology that has developed music videos even further. The introduction of the MTV channel which showed music videos all around the world. Coming to the most recent years when internet was introduced which connected mass audiences across the world. The introduction of YouTube, Google Videos, Facebook and iTunes has made music videos very commercial and profitable and available to a mass audience. According to NME magazine the most viewed YouTube video is Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris, Baby, with a total of 549 million views! And this is just one video on one website, Billions of views are occurring across the web each day. 

Jack