Industrial Research - History of Music Videos

 What are music videos for?

• Money-making: Music videos create the opportunity for monetisation. With the creation of YouTube, artists seized the opportunity to upload their videos to the site and this saved the music video industry as previously, before the release of the site in 2005, the revenue generated from the sale of albums and concert tickets were the primary source of income for music producers. YouTube allowed for income to flow constantly, as videos would consistently produce revenue as they are watched by users on the site. 
• Product placement: Music videos allow for product placements, where brands can insert their name or product into an artist's work in some way. Music producers can generate alternate sources of revenue, and brands benefit from the placement as it expands their reach and anchors the product in the mind of fans. Brands often pay large sums of money for a short amount of screen time in a music video, as it means copious amounts of exposure and revenue from video streaming. 
• Lady Gaga's music video for her song "Telephone" has twelve brand placements, with some examples being Diet Coke, Virgin Mobile and Hewlett-Packard – and garnered over 296 million views. 
• Promotion: This can mean promotion of new albums and singles, promoting new artists to an audience, providing for existing audiences, promoting the image and identity of an artist or band that may be exciting- or a deviation from their previous identity  
• Visual and personal storytelling: Artists may wish to use music videos to convey visual images that connote meaning and story related to the song. Many artists use videos as a form of self-expression as well, and can be considered an art form in their use of mise-en-scene – they may convey abstract and non-conventional ideas that music may not be able to offer.

A Timeline

• 1920's and 1930's – Music videos were filmed in one take and were few and far between. Most "music videos" were performance based and short films emerged where artists performed during their duration.  
• 1940's and 1950's - Videos were still performance based however some performances had dance routines in accompaniment. Elvis Presley is without a doubt the most famous example of this during his music videos, taken from full-length movies that starred him (Elvis Presley - "Jailhouse Rock", 1957) 
• 1960's – Dubbed the era of the dancing culture. Videos still remained in basic black and white however technology was advancing and meant different camera shots and techniques could be used. Panning and closeup shots with help from machinery like cranes meant that videos like "Let's Twist Again" (Chubby Checker, 1961) could be created  
• 1970's – Introduced rock and roll bands, but Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" made music video history with techniques and effects like the "kaleidoscope" effect and multiple images merged together were ground-breaking.  "Top of the Pops" was a turning point in the history of music videos, as artists could promote themselves further and perform live on the programme. Colour film also boosted the production of music videos, and they were no longer just a performance of a song. 
• 1980's – The introduction of MTV in 1983 meant artists could reach superstardom through their music videos. The reinvention of Michael Jackson, the success of Prince and introduction of Madonna- music videos of these artists became a permanent fixture on MTV and gained a massive audience. Artists began to break convention with more controversial videos, in an attempt to rise above the others in the competition for stardom.  Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982) was undeniably the most prominent music video of the decade. 
• 1990's – Considered the golden age for music videos. Provided an outlet for ground-breaking directors to create narratives and imagery for an artist or song that could become as memorable as the song itself. MTV had the ability to place a song and musician into the pop music sphere and that resulted in lucrative and creative commitment into creating music videos. Gun's N' Roses "November Rain" serves as a good example for this. 
• 2000's - Music videos were able to be immediately and directly uploaded to the web and were widely available on many sites. Because of this availability budgets for music videos reduced. This period of time is marked by the application of the male gaze theory with rising popularity of Hip-Hop and R&B music. 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" (2005) shows the objectification of women and the application of the male gaze theory.  
• 2010's - Emerging artists usually begin to cement their brand identity through performance music videos. Artists who already have a recognisable star image like Rihanna and Beyonce tend to embrace their sexuality in videos. Narrative is a lot less popular in music videos as well, and often include aspects of the artist's wealth and luxurious lifestyle. 

Codes and Conventions of Music Videos

Music videos usually follow the codes and conventions of two main styles - performance and narrative videos - and often feature the artist themselves or actors. 
Performance music videos follow codes and conventions like: 

• Artists and bands may perform songs in unconventional locations. Cliff tops or tropical beaches are not uncommon – Duran Duran's "Rio" has the group performing on yachts and the beaches of the Caribbean.  
• There may be footage of the group in an informal or personal situation to illustrate their career- there may be clips of the group in a recording room, studio or tour bus. 
• Showing amateur, fan-submitted footage, showing concerts or performances from the perspective of a crowd member makes viewers feel like they are a part of the audience, in the experience themselves. 
• Inclusion of footage of the artists at work, performing, singing or playing instruments. This, to audiences, feels personal and includes direct mode of address, so that the audience feels the artist(s) is performing to them specifically. 

Narrative music videos follow codes and conventions like: 

• Use paid actors to portray the narrative of the song; but this can be intertwined with shots of the artists performing, cutting back and forth between the two. - Carly Rae Jepsen's video I Really Like You features this. 
• Music videos can work as short films to communicate the meaning of the song, using the same narrative techniques as a feature film- sometimes with fleshed-out characters that go through a state of equilibrium-disequilibrium-new equilibrium (Todorov) - an example being Taylor Swift's Blank Space. 
• Telling the story of the song lyrics through technical codes and video editing, sometimes abstract and able to be decoded in different ways.