Tuesday 31 January 2012

From MTV to YouTube: Studying Music Video

Tuesday 29th November 2011
10:30am – 3:30pm

Screen 6, Rich Mix


Schedule For The Day

Morning Session
- Welcome by Thalia Cassimatis, Rich Mix Education Officer.
-Presentation with clips by Pete Fraser – The history of the music video, codes and conventions and top tips for making your own pop promo.


Afternoon Session-Presentation with clips by Liz Kessler – working in the industry and commissioning and producing music videos.
-Q&A session with Corin Hardy – working as a music video director.
On Tuesday 29th November I attended an educational event dedicated to the history, origination and the continual evolvement of music videos. Music videos are powerful and enticing media form. I became excited for what we were to learn, such as, the key concepts in media studies.
The day was split into two parts with a morning and afternoon session. We began the day by observing a presentation with clips by Pete Fraser who is the chief examiner for OCR A Level Media Studies and is also the author of the BFI Film and Media Studies resource Teaching Music Video.
These showed us the history of music videos and showed us some top tips for making our own indie promo. He taught us that music videos last the length of the song, sometimes longer. They sometimes feature the artist and they sometimes tell a story. Here is some history I learnt about music videos:
1930′s: Experimental
-This was the decade of experimentation.
-Colours and shapes were found in time with music videos.
-End of this era, Disney did similar ideas with Fantasia.
The 1930s saw the emergence of ‘A Colour Box’ by fine artist Len Lye. He creates visual to illustrate the background track (lyrics) in shape and movement. I thought this was ingenious and very distinct relationship of the ink following the rhythm of the music.
















1940’s: Soundies
-1940′s in America found juke box TV’s for music videos
-After the war came small films with soundtracks
-The soundies dies down because of censorship.
-The soundies died out as there was an objection to the sexual references involved.





"The Frim Fram Sauce" is best remembered for its silly lyrics. The narrator speaks to a waiter in a restaurant, as if in the process of ordering food. Throughout the song, the customer lists numerous real foods that he doesn't want, such as pork chops and fish cakes. In the chorus, he explains what he really wants: some "frim fram sauce" with the "ossenfay" and "chifafa" on the side. Of course, none of these foods really exist, so at the end he gives up and says: "If you don't have it, just bring me a check for the water!"

1960’s: Scopitones
-Came in 1960′s in France. Later came to America and the UK.
-Similar to the soundies dukebox that it would show the music video on screen.
-European artists mostly appeared on these.
-Released films like the previous music videos seen with hand held and other techniques.
Scopitones were often ‘sexy’, but it would compile a lot of fun colours, feature artist, dancing, and concepts including Scopiton gals and Guys.
This paved the way for music videos- Bands started to produce proper music videos. (E.g. The Beatles).


The Beatles Can’t buy me love video was used to showcase the song. It was the first of its kind, the idea of promoting your music with a visual attachment was not considered then to be the norm, but it transformed the solution in which the music industry could adopt effective promotion of artist singles.

1970’s
-Became more common for artists to release music promos-very important.
- Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody” was No#1 on Top of the Pops for 7 weeks due to video.







1980’s
 -MTV 1981 – Round the Clock Music Video programme –born in America, which was largely dominated by British bands.
-Important artists at this time- Madonna, Michael Jackson.
- Madhouse popular due to whacky and out of the box videos! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIe_sjKeAY
- Madonna/Michael Jackson Leading icons of the 1980s!
American artists, such as, Madonna dominated in music videos. Not only did she often change her appearance in every video & shows, to take to the next level videos would be high budget with only the best and most high profile directors and filmmakers.  Madonna was her own business woman, as she was the first to embark on the opportunities of producing music DVDs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=snsTmi9N9Gs
-Only 2-3 female artists famous only! It was mostly male dominant.
- Until Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, there was no black music before that! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y
- Built up image by breakthrough of “Thriller” for black music like Madonna for female artists’ music.
After the massive production and cinematic spectacular that was Thriller, MTV never established a market for black artists. But Michael made them think black acts were a HOT Market worth incorporating!


2000’s
 -50 Cent Candy Shop made waves in hip-hop and mainstream music.


- Massive sexual conception in clear candy references shaping his fantasy, 50 Cent said, "we tried to do something a little different" and not follow the same route.  At the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, the music video was nominated for Best Male Video. The video were conventions of lavish style, wealth, excess, and females.

- Jay Z's epic music video premiere of 99 problems.
Jay-z requested it embodied a rock feel. There are
40 cuts in the video making for an edgy outcome in the editing and visuals for the video Editing, work with music!
It depicted several situations of problematic statures. Watching the video again, I like how It caused controversy of sex and violence to generate buzz for the music artistically and politically. (See more information on the scenes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Problems#Music_video)