Brief Description Of Music Video's And Why They Exist

In the late 50’s a machine was invented in France called a ‘Scopitone’. The ‘Scopitone’ was the first visual jukebox to be created and lead to the creation of several short films made by music artists in order to promote their music. This invention had a big influence on the way other countries and its use lead to the Italian invention of the ‘Cinebox’ and the American invention of the ‘Color-sonic’, these were both different models of the original ‘Scopitone’. The band ‘The Animals’ created one of the earliest performance clips for their 1964 hit ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. This was one of the first high quality, colour clips that was used to promote music. The clip was filmed in a studio on a specially built set that featured the group in a lip-synched and choreographed performance, it was made using an edited sequence of tracking shots, close-ups and long shots.
The Beatles were the first big, A-list band to catch on the idea of music videos, they realised that instead of going to gig’s and going on tour they could just make re-release their songs as music videos and sell their songs to their audience all over again, this was a big money maker. They made music videos for some of their songs such as, ‘Pennylane’, ‘Strawberry fields’ and ‘Yellow submarine’. This idea was soon used by bands such as ‘Queen’ and their hit single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which has been noted for being entirely shot and edited on film.
It was from 1981 to 1991 that music videos really took off and went mainstream. In 1983 Michael Jackson released the video for his song ‘Thriller’ which has been quoted to be most successful and influential music video of all time being nearly 14 minutes long. It was in 1981 that MTV (music television) was created and was the first television channel that specifically broadcast music videos. In 1985, MTV launched the channel VH1 (video hits one) which was created to play softer music and appeal to the older audience. This was the first music channel that specifically appealed to a certain audience and you could say it was from this idea that all music channels were created to appeal to different audiences.
It was between 1992 and 2004 that music video directors really became credited and for the work they had done and started to become popular. This was when music videos started to become a representation of the song and the artist and when big money started to be thrown into the music video industry. It was in 1995 that a music director called ‘Romanek’ directed the video for the Michael and Janet Jackson song ‘Scream’ which cost $7million to make and is recorded as being the most expensive music video of all time. In the same year he also directed the video for Madonna’s ‘bedtime stories’ which cost $5million to make. These two videos can be credited for starting off the craze of making