Research: The History of Music Videos

Before music videos developed into an official artistic category of film, record companies used music videos simply as an extra promotional device. Illustrated song was apparently the first step forward towards music videos. This was popular during the early 20th century as a way of visually entertaining an audience with image slides during a musical performance. A projector would typically be used in the form of a magic lantern, displaying images reflecting the mood or meaning of a piece of music.

A Magic Lantern 

"A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes." - Wikipedia definition of music video. 

1920's to 1980's

One of the First Music Videos in History
Bessie Smith St Louis Blues (1929)

Bessie smith was one of the first artists to use this new form of film as a promotional device for her song St. Louis blues. Before the development of music videos a performance aspect (featuring the artist) was necessary as a way of promoting their image. Due to the recent development of film media fans rarely had the opportunity to see the performer other than on the cover of their record, and/or live performances (which was a luxury at this time). Many artists followed this example and created their own dramatised performances of their songs. This music video was created after the arrival of talkies, before which there were many musical short films played to music to an audience. At around the same time this Bessie Smith music video was created, "Screen Songs" or sing-along films were introduced which encouraged audiences to sing the provided lyrics prompted by the "bouncing ball". 

Musical Films 1930-1959 (golden age of musical film) 

Musical Films are a combination of song & dance embedded within a film, often moving along the narrative and developing the characters.  With the invention of the Vitaphone (microphone) combinations of music and filmed narrative became popular. Musical songs were often released to promote the release of a musical film such as "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The first ever all-talking, all-colour feature length musical film was "On with the Show!". Some music videos from a more modern era were influenced by musicals of the 1950's and 60's, for example Madonna's Material Girl took inspiration from "Diamond's Are A Girl's Best Friend" 

At the beginning of the 50's the Scopitone was invented in France. The new jukebox was a combination of 16mm film projected onto a screen and played to music, with a variety of of around 30 music videos to choose from. This trend spread from France through to Germany, England, the USA and various other countries. The Scopitone was technically the forerunner to our modern day music videos. 

The Scopitone

With the development of new, modern music and the invention of the TV, the production of music videos also increased. The TV provided a new way of promoting new artists quickly, and was now a part of most households. 

(to be completed) 

Analysing Music Videos: The "Chasing Pavements" shot

Practice Shot
After having analysed the still from the shot we'll be replicating, we concluded we'd need the following:

• Low lighting (source from right side of frame)
• Warm/brown filter (to be completed in colour grading stage) 
• Some form of coat- as similar as possible to Adele
• A high angle shot panning from left to right (slowly) 
• A ratio of 7:2 for tree in shot and grass in shot. 
• Similar texture of tree
• Grassy background (perhaps shoot on school grounds or in a nearby park)

Our practice shots...

Analysing Music Videos : Adele- Chasing Pavements/McFly- Five Colours In Her Hair

Over the next few lessons our class will be analysing music videos and deconstructing them visually. The previous lesson we explored different shot types used in the music video "Five Colours In Her Hair" by McFly and concluded that close-up shots, long shots, mid's were the most used. Each band member was also introduced and given the spotlight at some point, perhaps the lead guitarists more than others, but all band members shared the camera. This is perhaps for the purpose of establishing the group and giving each member a "label" (e.g. Harry- the drummer of the band) to make the band more appealing to their audience, and as a result have a closer relationship between the audience and the band.

In our preceding lesson we began to look at Adele's famous Chasing Pavements, and were given the task to replicate a specific shot from the music video.

 The song generally talks about deciding whether or not to be in a relationship, and has perhaps not a particularly happy but not a dramatically sad (more like bitter-sweet) kind of sound. The song is of the genre of a pop ballad and of an average tempo. To fit in with these characterisations of the song, one of the obvious tools used is a slow pan (slightly elevated) as well as close-up shots and a couple long shots. The shot our group will be replicating is from 2:25 to 2:29 as precisely as possible. Below is an analysis of a still from the shot we need to replicate.

Reflections

It is obvious that at the beginning of the previous unit, our skill set in the pre/post production was limited and very basic. I think with the execution of the preliminary task alone, we had gained a fair amount of skills already. We learnt-

• Shot types (establishing, long, mid and close-up etc...) 
• Depth-of field and how to use it in framing
• Basic production terms and how they're used on a set
• The basic equipment in production of film (steadicam)
• Editing techniques in final cut pro- and generally about the software
• Disadvantages of filming on tape
• Finally- the importance of working effectively and quickly

Already we had learnt a great deal about the filmic processes and also what it's like to work creatively with other people. Personally, teamwork is something I've previously struggled with in the past, and I expected that for a project that requires a collective effort I would be unable to collaborate with others however, I proved myself wrong. Despite this we felt that a stronger distinguishing between roles was necessary to achieve our goal, so that (pre/post) production would run smoothly. This was exactly what we did in producing our official two-minute opening. In this way organisation played an important part in the development of our skills set. Specifically, we had to do a great deal of organisation to be able to shoot our film on the London Underground. This included sending off an application for a permit, drafting a risk assessment, insurance etc... all of which had to be completed by a specific time. Deadlines naturally arose, and we had no choice but to meet them, which helped us improve our time management skills as well as giving us a real taste of the pressures of the industry.

When we arrived to produce our film, we learnt professionalism through reassuring the station supervisors that we had planned immaculately, and that we were serious about our project. Leading on from this point- professionalism also played a part in being respectful of the public's right of way when filming on the underground, but at the same time staying focused on our project. The longer we filmed, the easier it was to focus on our project and we managed to complete everything we planned with time to spare.

Creating roles in our group not only taught us organisation, but why it is so important to have those roles (even the minor ones) in the industry. Every role is important no matter how insignificant it may seem, and if everyone fulfils their job to the correct standard the work will pay off. Personally I found myself to be more comfortable with the production and pre-production aspects of our film as opposed to post production. I think my strong points are envisioning how a film may be shot, rather than envisioning how the separate pieces we filmed may work together. There were things in the editing aspect that my peers picked up on quicker than I did. Having said that, all of us improved our knowledge of Final Cut Pro and the possibilities at our disposal. In comparison to editing our prelim task, the Final Cut Pro skill set we all begun with was very basic. We were also able to take one step further this time with our final project, through using the software Color to colour grade our sequence.
This leads me on to my next point- that our general knowledge of film terms, software, equipment etc... improved as we put it to use during the production of our film.

Throughout the planning and pre-production we ensured that we stuck to film opening conventions enough so it would be obvious our product was a film opening, but also so our film wouldn't look too cliche. The decisions we made throughout were always in relation to whether or not it would be appropriate for the final product.  During the storyboarding process we constructed our shots carefully and whilst considering metaphorical resonance, which was another important skill we learnt in producing our film. When it came to planning our schedule, shot list and setup we considered the practicality of each shot, equipment as well our busy location of the London Underground. This not only prepared us for the day of the shoot but also improved our time management skills as well as planning and problem solving, to avoid issues on the day.

Finally, without patience and focused minds we wouldn't have achieved our final cut of Unspoken. Editing in particular required a great deal of patience as we still weren't familiar with every application and sometimes struggled to achieve what we envisioned in our heads.