Music videos have changed and evolved depending on the social trends at the time
Over the decades, all aspects of media have changed and evolved depending on current trends, interests and what’s popular and enticing for the audience. 
Earliest music- 1950's- Tony benet - Strangers in paradise
This video is a mixture of still images with the song playing over them. There is no use of high technological editing joining the images together. Or any moving images. Also the song is a classical contemporary piece. The colours used are quite dull and not very vibrant. This would of matched the interests of people at the time because they was not use to the highly animated videos that we see now days and therefore would have been very impressed with the video.
1964- The Beatles - A hard days night This video had an effect on how many contemporary artists film today. Its a black and white video, using the performance style of music videos. This allowed the Beatles to tell a story with their video.The audience could really focus on the performance of the video, which would help to engage them. The old fashioned iconography and actors costumes shows the era that the video was released, therefore the audience at the time would find the video highly relatable because they also have similar clothing and experiences that are happening to the characters in the video.
The innovation of music video was of course the editing and filming process. High quality coloured video recorders and portable recorders, made filming the videos relatively easy and cheap compared to using film.
The modern ear of music videos 1970's - Top of the pops
In the UK top of the pops was highly important as it helped to promote artists and a brand. It also stimulated competition between bands and record labels as the show would only show a strict number of videos meaning, a good video would increase a songs sales as viewers would want to see them again. However, after 42 years the BBC decided to call it quits on the show because the weekly show could no longer keep up with the 24 hour music channels. The show was just not as popular as it use to be, and lost many viewers to other channels.
Early 1980's Artists started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos and added a storyline to their videos, this made the videos more interesting and engaging for the audience because it made the videos more interesting for them to watch.
Michael Jackson was the first artist to create the concept of the music video being a short film, meaning the video would have a beginning, middle and end. Starting this on a small scale at first he done this with 'Billy jean' then he went on to do this with West side story. However, it wasn't until 'Thriller' that was released in 1984 that he took music videos to another level, due to the engaging storyline and story like intensity of the song.
1981 - MTV began
The first video to be aired on the channel was Video killed the radio star. MTV, grew by mid 80's to play a major role in the marketing of music videos. Many saw the beginning of MTV as the start of a 'golden era' for music videos. The purpose of the channel was to air music videos in order to promote artists and bands. But throughout the years it has expanded into more than that. It now also runs music based shows and music awards. This is beneficial to the audience as they are able to satisfy all of the music needs with one single channel. And that benefits MTV because it means that they are more likely to retain viewers and not lose any to other channels as viewers will be able to find everything they need on the single channel.
2005 - youtube
Youtube as created by three men who had difficulties finding and sharing videos online. It was many different ideas that then came together to form the idea of a video sharing site, which is currently broadcasting 100 million shorts videos daily. $8.5 million funding from Sequoia capital allowed them to develop this even further and allowed users to share videos individually and this is the Youtube that we now know today. It made viewing videos easier as you no longer had to download any software or register, also it was both easy and edgy which people enjoyed. The most popular and most viewed video on youtube is Gangnam Style by Psy. Overall the video has had 2,390,795,838 views, this is over double the amount of views of it closest rival. Youtube, is constantly developing to keep up with the trends, the site is now moulding into more of a social media site as people are able to comment and like other videos. You are also to subscribe to peoples music channels and share their videos with friends. By enabling users to do this youtube has kept up with the demands by social media users and remained a highly popular site.
Most expensive music video
The most expensive music video ever made was created by Michael and Janet Jackson, it is called Scream. The song has a space themed music video, costing roughly $7 million. To date this is still the most expensive music video ever made, this is because although producers offered to make Michael a set for the space themed video, Michael insisted of them creating an actual real life rocket ship for the video to be performed in.
Present
Nowadays, music video are used to help promote an artists but similarly audiences watch them for entertainment as many use the narrative style of videos. The different genres of music videos use either one or a combination of the three different styles (narrative, performance and concept). Also higher quality cameras and editing technique's, which produces and higher quality video. Additionally, artists are becoming more involved with the creation of their videos giving them a more personal feel. For example Justin Bieber who in one of his videos gave the effect that he had filmed the video himself on a personal camera. This is appealing to the current social trends of the audiences and it makes the video feel more personal and like they can connect with the artists more.
This post has shown me how music videos have developed over the years, as it has followed the changing trends in how people want to view, download and listen to their music. Videos today in comparison to what they use to be like are completely different, now a lot more advanced editing and concepts are used to engage the audience. It has also shown me that youtube is highly useful when producing my music video as it will allow me to post the video live worldwide and collect feedback on the video in the comments section.
This post, demonstrates a very limited understanding of how music videos have developed over the years and this is because this post is incomplete. You need to refer back to the lesson and ensure that you have included all the correct points, as points on youtube, genres, target audiences, technology, etc are all missing and need to be included.
ReplyDeleteRefer back to the lesson, which will assist you with completing this post.
This post now demonstrates some understanding of how music videos have changed over the years. You have made a start in including further points, but you need to ensure that you relate your points back to the target audience and music industry, to demonstrate further understanding of the industry and how certain technological improvements have been successful.
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