The suggested starting point of the music video is the ILLUSTRATED SONG. The illustrated what? Indeed. Song. Basically, still images put together in an interesting way to help the song along. It was started the help sell sheet music way, way, back in the day. End of 19th Century and beginning of the 20th.
It's hard to get an idea what these where like because they were usually used when a LIVE BAND was playing, and these images (just like the ORB and U2 still do today) were PROJECTED on the background. The purpose of it: to sell the sheet music, because in those days a popular form of entertainment was to sit round the piano and play popular songs of the day, yourself, on your piano.
People would titter, say ha-ha, lovely and things like that whilst getting drunk.
Similar, I imagine to a Friday night in student digs. Except maybe a little cleaner.
Here's one to give you an idea. Except this is a like a modern old version. This isn't what people watched and it is quite boring. But, it gives you an idea.
Quick detour for a moment. The illustrated song is alive and well...check out Easyjet's Ad.
Okay. So what's to learn? Well, loads actually. The makers where discovering how well images worked with sound and how people liked to watch both (and buy both) at the same time.
The Little Lost Child helped to sell nearly TWO MILLION copies of the sheet music.
Also, there are early hints of beat matching!
There were big drawbacks. Working only with live bands was pretty restrictive as you'd imagine. The music makers needed a better way to get a hold of the public, and in greater numbers. That would come along with the next EVOLUTIONARY STEP, VITAPHONE.
However, there's more. Illustrated songs are still used today. Especially by bedroom editors and kids just messing about with editing programmes. This time, there is no live band. But the concept of shooting up still images over music remains a powerful one.
And they, the bedroom editors, you even, produce some startling results. Sometimes, even BETTER results than maybe the big, paid for by the artist, video itself. Can you dig this one, then go check out the original video for Blood by Editors?
History, history, history. Stand back for a mo' and ask yourself - why bother learning about this history of the medium you'll be making for, I mean, what's the point?
Our knowledge of history frees us to be contemporary.
Nothing like sticking a quote in bold to get the blood racing. Notice some of those cuts, pretty slow, eh? Why does the mind not like slow cuts? Can you avoid being boring with your work?
Moving on...
VITAPHONE
Vitaphone is an interesting part of music video history because what these guys did was crackers. They recorded film (with no sound; you couldn't record sound onto film in those days, you still can't, but we're all used to video cameras so it's hard to imagine otherwise)
However, get this, they had the music on a record (vinyl) and TIMED it perfectly to start playing when their pictures started playing. And in doing so, SYNCRONISED, the picture and the sound. Quite sophisticated.
It was a big improvement in sound quality and also meant, most importantly, that the records could be marketed in MASS MARKETING technique. You didn't need the band there!
You could sell the vinyl and people didn't have to sit round the piano anymore!
SPOONEY MELODIES
Next up in the historical journey tour are weird little short 'films' called SPOONEY MELODIES. These were more sophisticated, as media products, than the vitaphone shorts because they included the sound and the film together and could be viewed as such.
The ''talkies' (as films with sound, as oppose to silent films, which had reigned for twenty years or so) were called, well, they changed everything.
You didn't need some wee man playing the record, you just whacked the whole thing up on the screen and away you go. Cheaper. Better by the dozen. The motivation: SALES.
There's loads of great stuff came out of these early talkie days, especially in the area of music videos.
For instance, even at its birth, music videos were jumping into any genre of film making. Take for example the animations of Fleischer Studios. They used animations and helped people sing-along (like an early form of karoke) using the famous BOUNCING BALL.
Again, just before watching it - whats the learning here? You're a young film maker trying to make his/her first music video (and short film) what can you pick up from these techniques, which were to influence all the film makers you love to watch in the theatres now a days?
NEXT UP: Musicals.
Musicals had a big influence on music videos too. You can see a line between some of the musicals of the 1950s and some modern day music videos.
Here's a clip from West Side Story
And a clip from Michael Jackson's Bad
NEXT UP: SCOPITONE
What a word! Scopitone. If you Wiki the history of music video, which I'd encourage you to do, there is some great stuff about the first type of music videos made.
The Scopitone was a visual jukebox. Jukeboxes were popular in the day for playing music, but the visual jukebox was a novelty when it came out in the 1950s.
Imagine, a tiny cinema, and for a few pence, you got to control it! Control - now there's a concept in music videos and the music industry which has developed over the years. Think the way RADIOHEAD let people REMIX their whole album! People, who love your music, want to get as close to it as possible. Scopitone, Radiohead, it all links!
It was also an incredible marketing tool, because anyone could pop up and throw on a tune and watch a film and maybe, maybe then go out and by the record. It was a true EXPERIENCE. And one that could be enjoyed with a couple of friends. Again, music is a bringer together of people, and the marketeers knew this and worked with it, rather than against it.
They were invented in France, and if you want to find out a little bit more about them, try this website,
www.scopitone.blogs.com/
Its got lists of what films were made. Interestingly, it launched the careers of some of the biggest artists around at the time.
What happened was, the Scopitone was invented and lots of French artists and singers decided to make music videos for them. Including the likes of Serge Gainsbourg.
Check this one out. It's hilarious. And bright and wonderful too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F17NCygwxSk&feature=related
Here's another.
Look at those colours!
Okay, so that's a potted history from early days, right up to Scopitone.
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