Music videos originated in the 1950s but became more popular in the 1980s with the rise of MTV. Early music videos were short promotional films to market songs and artists. In the 1980s, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video helped establish the music video as a medium to tell longer visual stories that helped promote songs. Nowadays, major artists like Taylor Swift spend significant money on high production music videos that are also used to generate buzz on social media before their official release.

1. Music Videos

2. What is a Music Video?
• A Music Video is a 3 / 4 minute film featuring a song and imagery,
produced to sell music to an audience.
• Music videos are sometimes referred to as promotion videos because
they are to used to help with the promotion of the artist, song or album.
• In the 1980s, the term “rock video”; was often used to describe this form
of entertainment.
• Music videos are also used to promote an artist in a way of showing off
their style and overall image.

3. What is a music videos purpose?
The history of music videos?
• Where do they originate from?
• Early music videos of 70’s
• 80s – how did music videos develop and why?
Key artists who have influenced the development of
music videos
How are they structured?
Modern music videos
http://www.dailyinfographic.com/the-impact-and-
development-of-the-music-video-over-time
http://heathenmedia.co.uk/sledgehammer/20
11/10/19/media-language-and-structure-of-a-
music-video-andrew-goodwins-theory/

4. The History of Music Videos
• The history of Music Videos date back to the 1970’s but were developed
and became more popular in the 80’s. In the 80’s, music videos were
described as or referred to as “illustrated songs”, “promotional films”,
“promotional clips”, “song videos”, “song clips” or “film clips”.
• The earliest music videos/music promos were filmed in the 50’s. In the
20s, however, films by animators such as Oskar Fischinger were
accompanied by music and was known as ‘visual music’. Even animated
films, such as those by Walt Disney, were accompanied by music.
• The process of video recording and editing developed over the years as
new technology made it easier to play around with the video and styles.
The introduction to high-quality colour videotape recorders and portable
video cameras allowed artists to produce promotional videos cheaper
and faster.
• By the 1980s releasing a music video to accompany new single had
become popular and overtime normal in the music industry.
• In 1981 an entertainment cannel called MTV was introduced airing it’s
first video called ‘Video killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles.

5. Queen – Bohemian
Rhapsody Music
Video
Queen 's “Bohemian Rhapsody” started a whole new era for using
music videos as promos.
• The video for Bohemian Rhapsody was over 5 minutes long which
was very rare for a performance-based music video. Most videos
over 5 minutes long usually had a narrative e.g. Michael Jackson’s
‘Thriller’ which was over 13 minutes long.
• Instead, the Bohemian Rhapsody video was solely performance-
based with Mercury singing and playing piano with the rest of the
band playing numerous instruments.

6. Michael Jackson
• In the late 80s , sophisticated effects for videos were
being used more and more by music artists. Some also
started adding storylines and plots to their videos, which
sometimes showed the meaning behind the song.
Michael Jackson was one of the first artists to create the
concept of a short film. He released the video for his hit
song, Thriller, in 1984 which took the video format to
another level being nearly 14 minutes long.
• The video was set to cost over $900,000 for both filming
the video and to pay for dance rehearsals, therefore
Jackson payed $150,000 towards the video himself. MTV
and Showtime also paid up to $550,000 for the rights to
the documentary and for the video to made.

7. Taylor Swift
Nowadays, music videos are still made to promote artists and to put across the
message of the songs, however there is more money being spent to produce
and distribute them. One example is Taylor Swift’s video for ‘Bad Blood’. Taylor
Swift also excited fans with a ‘short film’ style music video. It was not as long as
Michael Jackson’s but it seemed to go viral rapidly.
Thanks to new technology and social
media, the promotion of videos has
become so much easier with the help of
social media. Before her ‘Bad Blood’
music video was released, Taylor Swift
gradually released posters which were
designed to look like film posters. Each
one contained a new character that
would star in the video, such people like
Selena Gomez, Cindy Crawford, Ellie
Goulding and Hayley Williams.