History of the music video

In 1894 sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video.

Little lost child, sheet music published by Edward B Marks and Joe Stern.




Vitaphone was a sound film process used on features and nearly 2,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes. The soundtrack was not printed on the actual film, but was issued separately on 12- to 16-inch phonograph records. The discs would be played while the film was being projected. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone process.

A Vitaphone-equipped theater used special projectors an amplifier and speakers. The projectors operated as normal silent projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable. When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable, being careful to align the phonograph needle with a arrow scribed on the record's label.

When the projector rolled, the phonograph turned at a fixed rate, and (theoretically) played sound in sync with the film passing the picture gate simultaneously.

Jazz Singer 1927 used the vitaphone method.




In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (produced by Warner Bros.) featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. Spooney Melodies in 1930 was the first true musical video series. Shorts were typically six minutes in duration, and featured Art Deco-style animations and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing.

Spooney melodies 1930 was the first true musical video.




Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball". Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Warner Brothers also produced the cartoon "Three Pigs in a Polka", set to Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances 1943.

Animation feature by Warner Brothers, the cartoon Three Pigs in a polka, using the musing in background by Johannes Brahms. The music helps to create suspense and adds dramatic effect.




In 1964, The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester. Shot in black-and-white and presented as a mock documentary, it was a loosely structured musical fantasia interspersing comedic and dialogue with musical sequences. The musical sequences furnished basic templates on which countless subsequent music videos were modeled.




In 1965, The Beatles began making promotional clips for distribution and broadcast in other countries, primarily the USA so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances.








Several of Michael Jacksons videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.

Modern music videos will take influences from other forms of media texts this is an example of that.

Music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium, and later with the launch of VH1 The term "music video" first came into popular usage in the early 1980s.
The first music video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action, filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos do not interpret images from the song's lyrics, making it less literal than expected.Many musical artists made their careers a success by using music videos. As an important part of the music industry, music videos not only showcase an artist's singing talent, but also how they perform.Premiering in 1974, the Australian TV show 'Countdown' played an important role in the development of the music video industry. Music video clips were used as a method of promoting acts that were to appear on the show. As the popularity of the video clips grew, the music industry began to realize the marketing potential of these music clips.