History of Music VideoBy Natalia dang

Projections of images to musicThe promoting innovation that made "The Little Lost Child" significant to cultural history was an idea in the mind of George H. Thomas even earlier, in 1892. Stern which sold more than two million copies of its sheet music following its promotion as the first ever illustrated song, an early precursor to the music video.George H. Thomas combined a series of images (using a stereopticon) to show a narrative while it was being sung. Lyrics appeared toward the bottom of the images. The first performance went poorly due to upside-down images of inappropriate size and placement, but these technical difficulties were soon corrected. The illustrated song technique proved so enduring it was still being used to sell songs before movies and during reel changes in movie theatres as recently as 1937 when some colour movies had already begun to appear.

Musical Films Developed as a Genre

The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the golden age of the musical film, when the genre's popularity was at its highest in the Western world. Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923-24. Beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. The earliest feature-length films with synchronized sound had only a soundtrack of music and occasional sound effects that played while the actors portrayed their characters just as they did in silent films: without audible dialogue.

"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" is a song introduced by Carol Channing in the original Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), which was written by Jule Styne and Leo Robin. It was based on a novel by Anita Loos.

1960’s Visual Innovation• Short promo films with many advantages• France- re-innovation of the Soundie, the

scopitone, gains limited success

1970’• Discovering TV shows as a great opportunity to promote

artists by record industries• Producing short ‘Promos’- early music videos, which replaced

the live performances• Top of the pops brought increased demand

1980’

• David Bowie- Ashes to Ashes considered as a groundbreaking video• Music Video went mainstream

• MTV, the first satellite music channel• Awards shows

Michael Jackson- Thriller• was a short film released, which changed the concept of

music videos forever.• The making of Thriller home video was also released in 1984.

It was the first ever video about the making of music video.

1990’• Rise of the director • An auteur’s medium- music video as art• Nirvana-Smells like teen spirit- changed MTV platform from

glam rock to alternative rock

2000’s - present• MTV Hits in launched as MTV2 is gradually showing fewer music videos.

• Internet revolution• Increase in YouTube/Twitter/Facebook makes quick and easy access to

music and music videos• First playable videogame music video game by Norwegian band Rektor in

2006