The Phonoscene was the next step in the history of music videos, it combined a chronophone sound recording with chronograph film shot with actors lip-syncing to the sound recording.
Warner Bros. were the first company to produce a musical short film as such, vitaphone shorts featured many bands, dancer and vocalists. "Spoony Melodys"was the first musical video series in 1930. Shorts were typcally six minutes in duration and featured art deco style animations and backgrounds combined with the film of the performer sining.
Shortly after animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing along short cartoons called 'Screen Songs' which invited viewers to sing along to popular songs, this concept is still going today with films like 'High School Musical'.Early animated films by Walt Disney such as the 'Silly Symphonies' short and especially 'Fantasia', which featured several interpretations of classical music, were built around music. The Warner Bro's early cartoons such as 'Looney Tunes' and 'Merrie Melodys' were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films.
The 60's were the time of visual innovation,
In 1964 the Beatles starred in their very first feature film "A Hard Days Night" originally shot in black and white and presented as a mock documentary, it was a loosely structured musical fantasia. The film consisted of comedy, drama and light musical sequences, the musical sequence created basic templates on which countless subsiquent music videos were created.
A year later in 1965 the Beatles released their second feature called 'Help' it had a different take on things, for a start it was filmed in colour and it was set in london and on international locations, the film put all the important musical sequences into a fantasy adventure with the group. The title track sequence to the film 'Help' was filmed in black and white and is most probably one of the most influential videos on modern performance style videos, it uses rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots, close ups and unusual shots and camera angles, such as the shot near the end of the song, in which George Harrison's left hand and the neck of his guitar are seen in sharp focus in the foreground while the completely out of focus figure of John Lennon sings in the background.
1974 saw the dawn of music television, Australia launched the first music video show which screened on sydney ATN-7 on saturday mornings, it was aimed at the teenage audience and it promoted both new acts and already established acts.
In the late 70's the well renound "Top of the Pops" a live music show broadcasted through the BBC, started to play music videos, therefore a good music video would increase record sales as viewers hopes to see it again the following week, because of marketing ideas like this one people such as David Bowie managed to get his first UK number one in almost a decade thanks to the director David Mallet and his eye catching promo for 'Ashes to Ashes'.1981 saw the launch of MTV, a 24 hour channel that streamed music videos non-stop.
2 years later the most inconic video of all time was released, Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
Other Iconic music videos are;
Johnny Cash with Hurt
It consists of a montage of shots of Cash that juxtaposes images of him, he died 7 months after the release of the song which makes it slightly more touching and iconic.
Fatboy Slim with Weapon of Choice
This music video stars the famous actor Christopher Walken, he dances and flys around a deserted Marriot hotel in L.A.
Jamiroquai with Virtual Insanity
The famous video shows the lead singer JK in a room accompanied by furniture while the floor seems to move and rotate around
