History of the Music Video

How the music video has developed and progressed
To begin our A2 work for media we are looking at the history of the music video and learning how they have progressed and developed into what they are in the modern day with companies such as MTV and multiple other companies providing constant streams of music videos and tracks for public viewing in their own home, compared with some of the very first and very monumental videos such as Al Jolson's 'Jazz Singer' and Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

The music video originated from 1894, in which music writers asked an electrician to help them with promotion of their music. When the electrician was asked to promote the music he began projecting multiple still images in succession, and this was the first large step toward the making of the music video. Shortly after this in 1900 Edison invented the Gramophone which gave the ability to record live music/sounds onto discs/vinyls. In the early 1900's music videos were progressing with the likes of Oscar Fischinger becoming the first person to use a moving visual production video to promote his music with 'Early Abstractions'


The next major development in the progression of the music video was Al Jolson's video of 'Jazz singer' in 1927 which was one the first music video in which the video was projected onto a screen and the vocals and instrumentals were played to coincide with the visuals of the video. This allowed music videos to develop in the fact that the phsyical presence of an instrument and musician to be present in the theater/cinema to play the music over with the video. This development caused a sudden craze of musicals in the 30's and 40's, which was labelled by many as the 'Golden age' of musical productions. 'Jazz singer' has been remade twice since the original version from Al Jolson.


In 1939 an American company called Mills Novelty Company produced the Panoram, a 2 tonne video jukebox located in bars and other locations such as cafes across America that showed short three minute videos projected onto a 20 inch screen, these became very popular in the 1940's and they were placed in nearly every bar across America. A patron would enter their money into the system to play roughly 8 short 2-3 minute films. The Panoram later went on to being replaced by a much smaller and colour version called the Scopitone, the Scopitone was smilar with the fact that it was a jukebox that ran a 16mm reel that projected images onto a screen, but the major difference was that the Scopitone was colour adn the Panoram was not. The scopitone was said to be the beginning of showing women in a sexual way, as it

By the 1950/60's music with a visual representation had changed greatly, many bands were performing live on television channels such as Top of the Pops, The Monkees had their own television show, this was showing that the music video was evolving very quickly and the technology of which helped do this was advancing at a phenomenal rate. Although despite these advances there was still no video that majorly stood out until 1975 when Queen produced 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Many considered Bohemian Rhapsody to be the turning point of the music videos, and the video that would change everything. The original intention of the video was too play on shows such as Top of the Pops because Bohemian Rhapsody was extremely hard to perform live and Queen believed it would be easer to represent themselves through this video.
This was the start of every band producing videos to promote themselves and get themselves noticed by potential fans. From 1975-1981 the demand for these videos rose steeply, this lead to the company Nickelodeon forming MTV, a television channel that broadcasted music videos 24 hours a day non stop, the bands that witnessed the beginning of MTV soon realised it's potential and soon bands thrived to be on MTV and have their music viewed by a huge audience, it was seen as a very useful tool to get a foothold into the music business. This meant that the demand of the audience was met and music videos became very popular.


In 1984, Michael Jackson released a 14 minute, $500,000 "masterpiece" that many considered to be the greatest music video ever made. Michael Jackson's thriller was considered by other bands, music critics, the public etc to raise the standard for all music videos and is still considered so at present. Thriller was considered ridiculously expensive, and many bands started to conform in spending more and more on their music video to try and produce the best possible video they could. The video went on too be nominated for six awards at the MTV music video awards, although it only won three of the nominated six. Last year in 2009 'Thriller' became the first ever music video to be entered into the National Film Registry.


In conclusion the music video has developed into becoming part of everyday life in which music videos are accessible by any member of the public, at present music videos are very common whereas approximately one hundred years ago there would not of been a music video, this is a very short time to come a very long way. Productions such as thriller and Bohemian Rhapsody were benchmarks in the music video industry that were considered a vital component in the progression of the music video, as soon as bands saw Thriller and Bohemian Rhapsody and the quality of them, they decided they needed a music video of their own.