For my Analysis I wanted to try and incorporate significant music videos that kick started and helped

shape the way we make and know music videos today.

The first video I looked into was the jazz singer. It’s hard to find and look for “the first music video”
because there’s many people that have different answers about what you would call or define as
one.

I read into stranger in paradise by tony Bennett in 1953 which he spoke about himself in his
autobiography saying that he considers that he was the first person to create a real music video
which he filmed whilst walking through Camden in London lip syncing to his song, however, there
was no video to analyse this therefore I dated back even further to the jazz singer (1927) which was
technically classed as a ‘film.’ Music videos were rare and unheard of in this time or at least the term
for what we know today wasn’t heard of.

The jazz singer was significant and important in terms of placing music and film in the same
category, as before this people were used to “silent” films therefore this was a big step in many ways
like sound camera and also acting and singing. Whilst theatre and musicals to this day are still a big
thing which plays in a similar way as the jazz singer, this was the first step / insight into how we have
been able to evolve Film and TV this into a separate category for just Music and incorporating visual
elements to work along side it.

There wasn’t a lot to go off when looking at the videos for the jazz singer, because nothing was
developed and understood as much as we know today. Everything people watched was simple, black
and white screens, no in depth visuals, simple orchestrated music, simple lighting, no special effects
as the list goes on, for example Al Jolson singing mammy a very well known song from that era, just
incorporated him singing to an audience/ his mum in the audience which is being filmed with a black
and white camera. There is no real narrative element to it, obviously this is generated around a film
that of course has a narrative but to single out the song itself it’s purely him singing to an audience
and his mum.

During this time this is how music was shown to the world, to audiences, live performances or
recorded performances. However, moving on from 1927, this was important when it came to the
development in cameras and music videos themselves down the line because during the 60’s when
the Beatles came along music was beginning to really take off and bloom especially when it came to
the creative aspects. For example the Beatles recorded I feel fine in 1964 and released a music video
along side it which included them singing in-front of a camera as if they were performing to a crowd
as a visual element to their song, this was significant in many artists work in and around this time
when music videos were just surfacing which links nicely to the jazz singer and the way they have
used these same ideas but have slowly started to grow and become more effective along side the
technology growth (cameras/sound/lighting)

Moving onto the MTV era in the beginning things were much more simple and very different, music
videos were becoming more heard of from artists and also other programs such as top of the pops
and countdown that helped create the huge music TV network that we know today. MTV had a
rough start for the most part. That’s until they started to incorporated different genres of music
which I found out from my previous secondary research and is highly important especially is for my
unit of work however, once they started to do this MTV rocketed off and people tuned in all day
everyday to listen and to see new music which really helped gain huge success for many big artists
we know of today for example Michael Jackson, his career really kicked off when he created Thriller
in 1983 which premiered on MTV on December 2nd. This was one of the first insights to a music
video with a real narrative and visual element which is majorly significant to what we know today.

Thriller incorporated things like narrative, there is a lot going on with the narrative but essentially
the beginning is a couple are watching a horror film about this couple and he turns out to be a
werewolf, then when they are walking home he sings to her and then dead people dance with him,
then the ending it’s like it’s all her imagination and then his eyes turn into a werewolf and it ends.
It’s a lot that happens especially because it’s 13 minutes long, however, it was the first taste of a
music video with incorporated narrative. Colour was obviously a big thing when it came to music
videos as before as I analysed it was a lot of black and white so this was a step forward in terms of
being able to use colour and also using colour to create a certain atmosphere. Locations were also
important and it is still important today, in order to set the scene and create an effective music
video. For example Michael Jackson used a graveyard and an abandoned house to help set the
horror/thriller genre. Special effects and props was something new and something that people
hadn’t really seen before in previous music videos, special effects were something new for music
and created a entertaining and realistic element to music videos to help capture the atmosphere and
emotions even further. better quality (for then) camera’s, technology had improved drastically
within the time between 1927 – 1983 like I said earlier there was colour it was better quality,
cameramen had more understanding on camera techniques etc. All these factors which we look for
in music videos today that we know makes effective music videos was something people were not
used to seeing which made it important and notable and attention worthy, people enjoyed thriller
and Michael Jackson himself so much for him to obtain the king of pop nickname which has gone
down and still goes down in history.

As to now 2019, technology and music has evolved dramatically over the course of many years and
we are now seeing a lot more high quality, expensive, thought out music videos, I lot more goes into
the process a lot better editing and camerawork, theres a lot of better things that are an outcome
from the development of our world and also our creative boundaries. For my last and final video I’m
going to be talking about the video that one the 2019 Grammy award for best music video, This is
America by childish gambino. This significance of this music video was for coverage and a platform to
share a powerful message. This is America has a strong narrative about the way black people are
mistreated in ways they shouldn’t as they are just like everyone else, it incorporates important
aspects of black culture within this difficult message. He has creatively captured a music video that
shows the harsh reality in which black people have and do suffer and created and shot in a way that
implies how it’s normalised in our society. We know when looking into how to make effective music
videos, the things people are looking for to make videos stand out to audiences, narrative, location,
mise-en-scene,, lighting, camerawork and the use of editing. The location as we know for music
videos is an aspect that is equally important, for this is America, the entire music video has been
shot in a rundown warehouse/buildings. Locations are able to symbolise things and intertwine the
message being shown, you could say that using run down spaces it’s implying the break down of our
society today in a bad way, or to help amplify this idea about how black people in America are
mistreated. Mise-en-scene things like props the way they’re dressed, linking back to the ideas of
including black culture, gospel outfits, they used old 70’s cars, Gambino had a shot of a black guy
being shot but they placed a cloth type bag over his head which dates back to the way they used to
execute black people, all these things are to create an atmosphere for the audience and to create
emotion.