the history of music videos

1. THE HISTORY OF MUSIC
VIDEOS
By Kenza Hardy

2. WHAT IS A MUSIC VIDEO
• A music video consists of a related
moving imagery that runs along
side a song. They are usually
between 2 and 4 minutes long
include singing into camera, close
ups and head on shots. They are
produced for promotional or
artistic purposes.

3. IT’S HISTORY
• The First music video to be produced in the 1920’s however, in 1894 a series of
still images were projected on to a screen and ran along side a live
performance. People called it an illustrated song. This was the first type of
music video. “The talkies” came in the 1920s which was instead of silent
movies.

4. OSCAR FISHINGER
• Oscar Fishinger was a German born who
experimented with visual material. He
escaped the Nazi’s in the 1920’s and
went to America. He worked on Disney’s
Film “Fantasia” which featured
variations of classical pieces. Oscar’s
work even made contact with Electrola
Disks.

5. 1930’S – 1950’S
• Short films were another type of music video that stemmed from the 1930’s. These
were no more than 8 minutes long and was a form of advertising artist’s talents.
They were mainly used in the picture houses in between news reels. Billie Holiday
and Bing Crosby were some of the first artists to use short film. Another form of
music video was the Musical Feature Film. They ranged from the first ever film with
sound (The Jazz Singer – 1927) to “The Young ones”- 1961.

6. 1960’S
• In the 1960’s the Scopitone machine was invented.
This played around 36 short films in colour and
sound which were mainly song and dance
performances. The majority of these were female
videos. This allowed you to select play and rewind
the individual short films, unlike the Panarom
which only had 8 short films which had to be
played in sequence. These were known as
“Soundies”. The Panaroms hay day was 1939 –
1946. The Panarom died out after the war and
created a large gap between the end of the
Panarom to the beginning of the Scopitone in the
60’s.

7. 1960’S CONTINUED
• Due to US films being produced by large companies for a large
price, unnatural colour and fantasy sets were used. This
created an unrealistic video and was shown a lot in MTV
videos.
• As TV popularity grew, the Scopitone died out at the end of the
1960’s. The Beatles changed the outlook of videos. They mixed
different styles of music videos together. These were
documentary and the French Nouvelle Vague. Due to the
Beatles, the “documentary” form became the most common style
of music video in the 1960’s.

8. THE 1990’S
• Another band called “the Monkees” took over from the Beatles and used many
devises which would later become a frequent use in music promos. These are
serialism, Jump Cuts, Wacky Comedy and lots of action that synchronise with music
performance. The Children’s TV channel “Nickelodeon” was created and former
“Monkees” member had the idea of creating a program full of music videos and
decided to collaborate with Warner Brothers with an aim to fill an entire network
with music videos.

9. TECHNOLOGY
• Technology has helped raise a large profile for music
videos. On Social Media like Facebook, Snapchat and
Instagram, artists post promo videos of their own
music video to allow fans to see them. This a way of
advertising and marketing. You can now also download
music videos from iTunes and Androids google play
store so they are available anytime any where.
Streaming is also a good way to access music videos.
For example on smart TV’s and a Chrome cast you can
now stream videos from your phone. YouTube is the
best way to access music videos. YouTube allows you to
see any videos from official music and lyric videos to
unofficial fan videos.