The History of Music Video

The Early Days
There is a long history of the mixing of moving film images and musical over-score, this has been seen from as far back as the 1920's, usually used in early experimental film movements. film musicals were very popular forms of fusing image and music, the first of which being "The King of Jazz", filmed in technicolor , is a major a part of America’s musical heritage that few people today know ever existed. The film has no plot, but consists of a series of extraordinary production numbers, with the music supplied by Paul Whiteman, who plays - "the King of Jazz," and his orchestra.


Then in 1940 came the first jukebox from the US that used an early version of the music video these were three-minute musical films, produced in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The films were displayed on the Panoram, a coin-operated film Jukebox or machine music, in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centers. "Soundies" covered a huge range of genre's and had special directing teams who specialized in creating these short films.


Then in 1960 came "Scopitones" which were the French version of a common jukebox and were seen as the first machine that properly could be seen as a model for music promotion as these would feature performances shown on a 16mm film component. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time. Based on technology developed during World War II.  The performances on the screens of these boxes featured the actual artist who were on the playlist one of which known to feature a performance by Dionne Warwick.


1960's
This era saw the beginning of the music and film revolution, the music labels and managers by this time had realized that music could be marketed not just on the sound of the band/artist as people would also pay to see them perform and go about there everyday lives. "Hard Days Night" is a 1964 British comedy film written by Alun Owen, starring The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star—during the height of Beatlemania. It was directed by Richard Leister and originally released by United Artists. The film was made in the style of a mock documentary, describing a couple of days in the lives of the group. This is a perfect example of a film that ticks the boxes of a rock film that attracts a huge audience because of the Beatles success and therefore harboring massive profits. It was because of this film that there were other small films made by other artists, many of which being heavily drug influenced, this is because of the high drug influence on bands music of the swinging sixties where there was a high level of LSD abuse whilst writing music.
1970's 
By the Seventies music videos were becoming a huge part of the music industry and they were even used on Top of the Pops if the band were on tour at the time of the show or were not available to perform. although it was much more in the public eye there was still a heavy drug influenced and experimental twist to many songs and accompanying videos. 
1980's
As the world was introduced to cable T.V and there became a gap in the very organized and tightly scheduled television listings other shows were able to break through. Because of the uprising in music video and the need for artists to use music videos to promote their every new single, the changes and improvements in technology enabled a channel called MTV which is an American cable television network based in New York city and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJ's. This channel allowed bands to use their videos to help sell new releases.



Lewis Holgate

Feedback 23/11/09

Very good research group - good links and references to songs/images etc...

Include a little more on definitions of branding - quotes etc...  see pack.

Dont forget to comment on the images/videos you put on in detail - analyse them - e.g. Florence.

Try to include the conventions and the history of music video in your own words (e.g. use of close ups etc..) and what media critics have said about conventions also - include Andrew Goodwin and Pete Fraser's ideas - a little more on this required- quotes etc....

Also what are the conventions of the singer/songwriter music video subgenre? What makes them distinctive from general music video conventions?

Target audience - you need an age range , gender bias, race and socio-economic status- you can have secondary audiences that are wider but you need a specific target - dont forget to use Young and Rubicon for your psychographic profiling too. Dont forget to put your audience questionnaires and results on here also -graphs and pie charts are good for doing this.

Now move on and look quickly at your other key concepts and we should be starting to see some planning - location shots/casting shots/ storyboards/animatics etc... 

Remember to outline your artist and the brand image you are trying to create/push through your products.

Genre

The genre in our video and of our artist 'Funnel' is 'Pop Punk/New Wave' in the video we want to capture a bohemian and indie image that reflects the band. examples of videos that we have been inspired us and ones we like for the quirkiness are - Two examples of videos that have inspired us are 'Tokyo Police Club-Your English Is Good' and 'Florence and The Machine-Dog Days Are Over' (which we can't upload as the embedded code is disabled) as we want to add a certain unique 'quirky' feel to our video, like theirs, we'll do this through our mise-en-scene, locations, cinematography, editing and colour effects.





Images of Florence and The Machine's Dog Days Are Over

the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ZPTFfpO40
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Recent chart facts show how Florence and the Machine are successful at the moment with music consumers. Second in the album chart behind Michael Jackson in june with 'Lungs' and this last week in december she is third for top tickets in the nme charts.

Knowing this has prompted us to carry on with this bohemian quirkiness image for Funnel to reflect their music. I think there would be a gap in the market for someone like Funnel.

Jane Keegan

The Music Industry and Branding

An artist's 'Brand' is the  most essential way of  advertising and promoting the artist and earning profits and recognition for them and their label. Music videos and album covers are the most effective way in which artists sell themselves to audiences. Other ways in which bands and artists do this is through the use of merchandise and performances in calendars, posters etc.


An example of an artist and their brand is Dr.Dre, he promotes a 'gangster image' of 'sex, women, drugs and money', in the majority of his videos there are women half naked around him, or he is driving in cars, or smoking drugs and throwing money around. His album cover for 'The Chronic' is basically him looking at the camera not smiling just looking 'cool' giving him that 'gangster' image, 'The Chronic 2001' is basically is his name 'Dr.Dre'(which many people already know and recognize from NWA), 'parental advisory warning' and a Cannabis leaf which strongly says what sort of image he wants to give off. He appeals to a lot of audiences, in particular young boys, who like the image of been 'cool' 'rebellious' and 'a hit with the ladies' so follow his music, buy his music and because of his 'Brand' he is getting recognition, audiences and earning profit because of it. His lyrics also are a major input to his image, if you listen to his songs.




Here are examples of Dr.Dre and his image in his videos and album covers

Jane Keegan

Inspirational Branding/Institution

Here are some artists with a bohemian/quirky image, this sort of image is what we want to portray for our artist 'Funnel' in our video production of their song 'Cake'.


Jane Keegan
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Institution
The media text we are creating is a music video, meaning it belongs to the music industry, the band that we possibly could be using are called Funnel and an example of a record company they could be signed to would be Rough Trade or Domino.

Typical traits of an Independant Record Label:

• Lacking financially compared to major labels.
• Their Genre definition is less clear.
• Music is seen as an art form, not a product used to gain profit.
• Niche audience.

The term 'independant' refers to companies that are independantely owned therefore completely seperate from major record labels.
Dominated by 4 major companies, the music industry which is made up of several labels who own between them 70%-75% of the market share.


The companies are shown in the pie chart to the left
-Warner Music
-Universal
-Sony BMG
-EMI
The major labels produce manufactured music that are all mainstream genres, popular artists or bands, are usually part of media conglomerates and have global domination when it comes to music.

 Peter Field

Branding

A Brand is not the same as a product, its is a particular make of the product for example tea bags are products  but 'Tetley's' and 'PG Tips' are brands of the product tea bags. Products needed distinct brands as a result of mass production: ''...competitive branding became a neessity of the machine age-within a context of manufactured sameness, image-based difference had to be manufactured along with the product (Naomi Klein, No Log)'' ie consumers had no choice because every product within a category had to be given a different personality to make people want to buy that particular product and not any other, thats why branding is so essential, especially to music artists.
Branding is a major factor in an artist success as this helps them appeal to an audience and create an image that people can recognize and draw them back to buy their product again and again returning to the artist and their work. Because of the artitst's recognizable signature brand or style will attract  peoples interest who follow other styles or brands who offer the same but different (Nick Lacey 1999, Narratives/Genres)
Brands work because they offer us the consumers a form of guarantee, as in a set of ready made values that are attached to a certain product which we can recognise when purchasing. Advertising today is not merely about selling products; it is about selling a brand, a dream, a message (Katherine Viner, www.commondreams.org) So in music videos this is what artists are doing selling themselves and their music. Brands make a product something unique and special , different to the rest-branding allows a product to stand out from the crowd. Which is why branding is so necessary to music artists, their videos give them the best chance to be different and promote their band to try and appeal to people, because ''Corporations may manufacture products, but what consumers buy are brands.'' (Naomi Klein, No Logo)
An example that shows how branding is everything to do with selling something be it on an advert, music video etc is the 'Hovis' bread advert, the advert is creating a loyalty brand, to keep people buying a particular brand 'for life'. As it is saying Hovis has been there in and for Britain through all the ups and downs in the last 122years, which gives a loyal brand image, making people want to buy this bread as it is a loyal companion to Britain.





Showing branding is key to selling a product, and why it is important all artists have their own brands which are illustrated in their music videos to advertise and sell them to consumers.




Jane Keegan

Intro

The Brief we have chosen for our project is the Music Promotion brief, from this we will produce a media portfolio comprising a main and two ancillary texts, the presentation of our research, planning and evaluation in electronic format on this Blog.

We are creating a music video for a Pop Punk/New Wave band called Funnel. This band are led by an artist of video and painting and we would be promoting her quirky style of art that we have seen in her paintings and videos that Lewis has been involved with in the past. We have asked Joe Hesketh (who sings in the band) if she would like to appear in the video and she agreed to be in it, we have pitched different ideas to her and she selected one of the ideas that she wanted to develop. We will document the ideas for our music video is our planning process.

Pete

first post

Hello, this is our group below.

From the left, Peter Field, Jane Keegan and Lewis Holgte


Our product will be a music promotional video for an unsigned, independent band called Funnel. They are a local band from Accrington and are friends of a member of our group, Lewis. All we know so far is that we will be trying to create a bohemian feeling and vintage looking 16mm effect film.