The history of music videos began in 1894 with the "illustrated song" which projected still images to accompany live music performances. In the early 1900s, the phonoscene synchronized recorded sound with filmed performances. Talkies and short musical films called "soundies" emerged in the 1920s-1950s. In the 1960s, bands like The Beatles and The Animals began creating promotional music videos. MTV launched in 1981 and greatly popularized the music video format, broadcasting videos 24/7. By the 1990s, music videos had become a global phenomenon, with high production value videos like Michael Jackson's "Scream" setting records. Today, music videos often tell complete stories like Craig David's "Seven Days."

1. History of Music Videos
Emma Sugarman

2. 1894
Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired an electrician called George
Thomas alongside a selection of performers in order to promote their
song, “The Little Lost Child.”
Using a ‘magic lantern,’ Thomas created a slideshow of still images
that were projected on a screen whilst live performers played their
music.
“Illustrated song.”

3. 1902 - 1917 - The
Phonoscene
Phonoscene - chronophone sound recording synchronized to a
chronograph film. The two combined created a sound film.
Firstly, producers would record the sound. A filmed actor would then
lip sync and the two components were then played together
synchronously.
Creator - Léon Gaumont 1902 France. Presented - Buckingham
Palace 1907. Last Presentation - 1917.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-VVNO_l5bY

4. 1926 - 1959 - Talkies,
soundies and shorts
In 1926, ‘talkies’ were invented, much similar to the phonoscene.
‘Soundies’ were then created, which were around 3 minute long
musical films.
Such clips were played on ‘visual jukeboxes’ often located in
restaurants and bars that featured musicians playing as a band,
dance sequences.
Produced - New York, Chicago + Hollywood 1940’s - 1950’s.
1958 - Soundies were produced in colour film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq9oHhkkVV0

5. 1960 - 1973 - Pop Bands
The Animals - House of the Rising Sun - 1964 - created a high quality
colour film music video which the band lip synced to on a manmade
set. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgANuwSNsok
The Beatles - first feature film in 1964. In 1965 the band made their
own promotion clips which they starred in themselves (10 black and
white promo vids.)
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever + Penny Lane - 1967 - colour
film clips.

6. 1974 - 1991 - MTV
Top of the Pops began playing music videos on TV in the later 1970s.
USA created MTV in 1998 - Video Killed the Radio Star was the first
music video ever played - from then on music videos became popular
across the nations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs
1983 - Michael Jackson’s Thriller was released.
1985 - MTV released VH1 (Video Hits One) which featured more
dated music in order to appeal to a wider target audience.
1988 - Hip Hop hit the music scene when Yo! MTV Raps was created.
MTV began broadcasting 24/7 music television to the public.

7. 1992 - 2004 - Worldwide
Broadcasting
During this time MTV sought to widen its
market to a global audience thus creating MTV
Latin America in 1993 and MTV India in 1996.
In 1995, Michael and Janet Jackson splashed
a whopping $7m on ‘Scream,’ which still holds
the record for the world’s most expensive
music video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P4A1K4lXDo

8. Present Day
Many music videos nowadays are short films in a storyboard fashion
with clips of the artist(s) as well. For example, Craig David’s Seven
Days tells a complete story of how he relives certain days in order to
rectify mistakes he makes when meeting a girl. It is an entire story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABuWphlnZ1A
With such a wide variety of musical genres nowadays, it can be
expected that certain genres follow specific conventions in terms of
music videos. For example, R&B and Pop music will usually feature
sex and clubs whereas alternative genres are more commonly bands
playing all together.

9. References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video
http://www.slideshare.net/naamah/music-vids-history

10. References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video
http://www.slideshare.net/naamah/music-vids-history