Music videos

Music video History.

Music video is a short film or video that accompanies a completed piece of music. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing to promote music and raise sales in the music industry. A good example are the Beatles being featured in a film called a hard days night. This gave the band more attention as the audience enjoyed their music featured in the film.
Music video were also known as promotion videos.
The first version of music videos that were used was in the 1920's from "vita phones shorts" and "spooney melodies". Musicals were the main attraction that film industry's were looking for. This was one of the ways that they wanted to promote new musicals and the older ones to get people to go to the theater and by doing this the theater gains money and  the musical will be promoted and reaching their target audience.

In the modern era the key development of modern music videos was the recording and the editing process. This was really important to them because this included a high quality video tape recorders  and portable video cameras. Pop musicians now had a chance to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply. this would have raised the sales for the pop artist sales on their singles and albums but this also raised the perception of the music industry in which they would get money out of this.
In the 1970's  the importance in the UK of the top of the pops to create a music video and a single created an environment of innovation and competition between bands and record labels. This was created because TV producers/ show directors started to put limits on how many they would put on their show.   
The show Devo played a huge importance as they shown the the early self- produced music videos including the pioneering complication "The truth about devolution" which was directed by Chuck Stalter. which was also important (still debated) as it among on of the first long form video productions.  
 
 1980 MTV
 Was created and presented in 1980. It was presented by John lack and the first song was by the "Buggles" with video killed the radio star. In MTV's early days its programming consisted of basic music videos and were produced by video jockeys and was provided by free record companies. As the record industry realized MTV's value for promotion the industry invested money to create cut edge, creative videos. In the 1980's MTV was know for good promotion of a lot of performers like Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince which MTV really promoted them and gave glory to their careers. 

Queen
Queen were signed to mercury records in 1969. And were one of the first to create one of the most popular land marked music videos along with David Bowie "life on Mars" and Abba.
Their land marked music video was bohemian rhapsody. This was so popular because of the editing techniques placed in the videos and how the artist were promoted.

The 1980's and the rise of the 'music video' bands

When this video first came out the artist became one of the most popular boy bands as their music video promoted  to be a heroic and handsome men that women dream about. The video was a love story and he was the hero of the women's dreams and had the newest clothes in that time which made him look attractive. So he was promoted positively to attract fans and sell . It was as same with all male artist then and it is even today. The conventions involved in this music video is the black and white when the the women is in the comic as when we see her reading it it is black and white. This is to show the different locations that she is in.
The one this that made this song a hit was the video its self and the the editing used to create it. the combination or animation and filming was very impressive considering the time this was in.



Michael Jackson. 

Michael Jackson first started out in the Jackson 5 and used to perform on the soul train along with his brothers Tito, Marlon, Jackie, Jermaine and Michael himself. They were a huge success and sold millions of records. But in 1971 Michael started to create his Solo career but remained thankful to his brothers. In the 80's Michael's music hit the top 10 and dominated in popular music at that time. He became a role model and competition to his fans and other artist all over the world. Michael was well known for his music and was a dancing sensation to a lot of dancers. Not only this he was also well known for his music videos  for example, Thriller and smooth criminal both narrative pieces and hit the top ten with in a week of their release. The use of sound was placed on their vocals and the song it self and with this convention used was to show the narrative of the video and keep the audience focused on it. This was very different to what all the artist were doing and because of his unique style and interesting narratives he made history with his music.

As you can see during this time MTV were receiving an investment to help create these amazing influential music videos that had a lot of  creative ideas put in by MTV and Michael himself. The choreography was his own with slight adjustments by other choreographers and  the video story lines were his and had directors directors to also add adjustments and help Micheal's vision appear how he wants it and how the director can promote Michael in the best way possible. In my personal opinion Michael always wanted to create a meaning or story to his videos and he used his work to stand up for people who were to be seen to be "outcast" of society but the in proper terms the people who society discriminate against. In Michaels case he was against racism, slavery and any type discrimination in differences between people.  And these messages is was what got him his fans as he was making protest music for equality and people listened to him and had an impact to society as people were listening and agreed with him. In way this was sort of proper-gander but in some cases with Michael he mainly wanted to create awareness of the discrimination and he also wanted to make people aware of deforestation all over the world and particularly in the Amazon rainforest. He created the earth song to make people realise what we are taking from nature and telling us we are killing the earth. so when Michael did this he also wouldn't do it for self benefit he worked

Madonna 


Madonna was a female sensation to the music industry as she would always have a message and was all about equality to everyone in the world. Baring in mind at this time she was in the era where racism and sexism was still alight within society and Madonna dedicated her songs to equality and she used them like a message to society to tell them the we are all equal. The video like a pray was about a black minority being accused of murder due to racism. Madonna in the video knew it was not him and it was about her standing up and telling the truth and that the words "Life is mystery, everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name, And it feels like home". saying in that society we all stand alone and its every man for themselves as you cant trust anyone and its hard to under stand how one difference makes you an underdog. In like a prayer she gave hope to all races and religions and women that there is hope and we will all be equal.

Madonna was and still is a sensation in the music business because she was more for equal rights for all human beings no matter what sex, race, class or religion you are. She used her music videos to pass a message to all society's saying that we shouldn't discriminate against a person just because a "feature" the poses as this does not define a person we are all the same. As she was a huge hit in the 80's the message passed through to people as she also became an inspiration to young women for fashion everything that she stood for because young women wanted to be her. Listening to her music inspired women to take a stand and stand up for them selves and empowered them to be strong and independent and we are just as important as men. breaking that glass ceiling effect she is truly an icon to society and powerful women.




Today's music videos  

In my personal opinion and along side a feminist view, I would agree that the sexulisation of women has become to the point of where it removes the whole of idea of boundaries. The pop stars now are seen doing drugs and women wearing hardly anything in their videos. This I find not acceptable as this is not only shown on television, its more accessible on social media's  such as you tube and in today's era children have access to internet and is possibly going to see this and imitate the behaviour seen in the video. This is more likely to happen if the child has grown up following this star and is a huge role model to them. for example, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. These girls where little actors on the Disney channel and were loved by young girls all over the world. Now these girls are pulling out videos were they are sexulised and doing inappropriate activity's.

            

From the loved Disney pop star Hannah Montana to someone those young girls cant even recognise. This girl is probably the girl who made a statement about how the boundaries don't exist any more.  We cant stop was the one that changed her good girl image as she is twerking and and smoking drugs and even licking stuff. It was also the same with wrecking ball. However, the in wrecking ball their was a lot of nakedness and again a lot of licking yet again, But she is not only one of the female artist that is also coming of as "no longer innocent" Ariana Grande  a star from Victorious and Sam and Cat.One of the main cast members and plays a innocent, cute and adorable young lady with the "mental age of a 7 year old". so seeing her music videos that is produced you get two different side of Ariana.    

Women in music videos are shown in videos to be full of make up and dress with the latest fashion. However, this how they are promoted and they are given the image of perfect. This then put the image in children's heads that they are perfect if they dress like them or do their hairs like them or do their make up like them. directors of music videos in my personal opinion need to be careful in what they place in their videos and how they present the artist as they forget that young girls watch this as is it goes viral on YouTube, Facebook and many other social media's.

Directors have given many people the view of "Sex is what sells" attraction is the key for celebrities to get their fans and stay at the top of the charts. However i feel that defeats the purpose of music videos as it should be about the song and   and the artist not showing their inappropriate side. especially now that children even have access to the internet and this then damages social norms and values of what is appropriate to wear or even do. As an audience we see this to be alight to do similar things as we thing if they are doing it its OK because they are not getting into trouble for it.

Its not just women that are exploited and can be seen damaging children's minds, men are also being inappropriate towards women  in music videos a good example is Chris brown- loyal. In this video he refers to women as "hoes" and talks about how women sleep around even when in relationships. In my opinion this is a huge generalization and is very good to be shown on television as children have more access to these videos. As a long term impact of this behaviour being shown on social media's like you tube and even on television children start to demonstrate this sort of behaviour.
Not only are these men in the video are being inappropriate in doing illegal acts they do not do it in the video however they do refer to drugs and them putting this in a video is rebellious and because they are referring to this young teenagers will thing its cool to do it because their idol is doing it.

 I think that celebrities and directors forget that their videos go viral and teenagers have access to them and that then can impact on the young children of society. Its the same concept as if a celebrity is wearing a certain dress some girl will see their favourite celebrity wearing it and will want it and wear it because the celebrity is wearing it.This is known as trend setting. This will be reflected with behaviour, if a certain celebrity is acting in certain way consumer will copy the trends and think the behaviour  is acceptable and do it them selves.

October feedback

You have attended sporadically and joined the course late but you seem to be enjoying the subject and linking well with members of your creative team.

You need to discuss the principles of video editing as well as the history. You need to reflect upon your own films and how they demonstrate the principles of film editing.

Deadline of Friday 16^th October to get two assignments completed, neither of which are pass standard as yet.

SMART targets 

 

• Publish your posts
• Include a bibliography
• Check punctuation. Captalise.

Principles and history of video editing

The History of editing


Thomas Edison kinetoscope 1888

The kinetoscope was a early motion picture exhibition device invented by Thomas Edison also the inventor of the light bulb. This was the first time that a moving image was seen and ever created.This was made for films to be viewed by one individual at a time and the viewers would have look through a little whole at the top. The kinetoscope created the illusion of movement by conveying strip film with a sequel of images held over a light source. The kinetoscope did not project the images but this did create a step towards projection. This is the sort of films that you could see through the kinetoscope...

As you know that we could not all see this at the same time, it would be one at a time as it is using one light source to show the moving images and there is no possible way of projecting with one singular light bulb without any other devices. we can tell this from the video as there are little jumps and bubbles in the images shown in the video and hardly any lighting which makes the images to be quite dark and quite hard to see. But this is what you would see if you watched
 The style that would be used for editing at this point in time would only be placing and cutting the images together to create the a fluent short film. However what material they had it didn't exactly come out as planned as the light bulb would shine more light through more and some parts so you might up with some parts with crackles.  

Lumière Brothers 1985 arrival of a train

The Lumière brothers were the first to bring early motion picture of projection to the the film industry which was the cinematograph which is a camera and a projector. Their inspiration that gave them the idea to create the cinematographic was Thomas Edison's  invention of the kinetoscope and to start them off they looked at the errors of the kinetoscope and saw that the main error with the kinetoscope was that only one person could see it at a time. So they invented the cinematograph which brought projection to cinema and dismissed the error of only seeing a film per person, now people can see films at the same time. Their most well known film for using the cinematographic was a black and white, silent documentary called the arrival of the train. This was first shown to the public January 1896 but this was filmed in 1895 one year before public viewing. The arrival of the train was important and became so popular because people were so overwhelmed with the train coming towards the the screen but made to seem that it was coming to towards them that they reacted in terror and ran to the back of the room screaming. This particular film made history as the film became very popular as people could not stop talking about how good the film was. The Lumière brothers were well know for their cinematograph but was also know for creating illusions using angles that they placed the camera in. Lumière Brothers were one of the first to experiment with camera angles to create different effects and that is why the the arrival of the train is so famous because it uses a variety of angles like long shots, to establishing shots, medium and then a close ups. This changed the film industry and inspired many directors to do similar effects.
In camera editing the Lumière brothers only moved the camera for each shot and recorded in camera and they didn't use editing to change anything about the shots that they used in their film, it was all first hand filming.

George Melies- 1903. A trip to the moon. 

when the Lumière brothers first brought out the cinemagraph, George Melies was in the audience when it was first shown in January 1896, he was inspired by them and wanted to change filming just like they did but with his own twist by using theatre props and setting. He also used dissolves to show the duration in the film took a while to plan to go to the moon and invent a rocket. 
     George Melies was one of the first directors to use dissolve, painted sets, animation, play on screen,cuts and not have the camera static through out the whole of the film. He placed it in many position and different angles to give more effect  to the film. He also used illusion and magic and that was what his life  revolved around about when he was in theatre.
when this video was being created it was used with the camera being set in the middle of the room to face the whole scene like you would as if you were in a theatre. this was also done with similar editing and was cut down for to those parts that was needed for the film. You can see where the cuts are put in place as you can see a jump when jumping from frame to frame.



Edwin porter 1903 the great train robbery.

Edwin porter tried to create his own projector and camera however did not succeed and went back to Edison company as a director and producer and then further down the line he created a film called the great train robbery. This was one of the first movies that had long shots and separated shots put together to create continuity within the film. This changed new cinema and inspired a lot of directors after his time.

Sergei Eisenstein (Russia) Strike 1925

Eisenstein was the first to create montages which is a series of images placed next to each other to create a meaning. Eisenstein was the first director in the 1920's to create a montage because he believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images you could learn a situation or about character.

When we did our own montage we created one about a guy failing in the gym but seems to be really confident with what he is doing. We created this in in stages like the warm, stretches then weight lifting. The montage really explained the stages of warm up and the actual exercise and using a montage help manipulate time because if we were to do this as a film it would have at least been 20 minutes plus but because we have done this in small shots and images it has shortened the film but  has told the same story just in a shorter film.



Walter Merch 

Manipulation of diagetic time and space. He used a dissolve effect to show that the beginning of apocalypse now was a flash back of what the person at the beginning has seen. At the beginning you see  a quite tropic jungle and hear the sound of a helicopter and then a load of explosions happen disturbing the peace. At this moment in the film the song "the end" by the doors sing the lyrics  this is the end. This give the impression of that there is a war and the fact that their is no more peace to in the area any more. A solider is lying a bed and is starring at the ceiling fan and this dissolves on to the helicopter paellas repentantly shared between the images of the ceiling fan, the helicopter and the man starring at the ceiling. This represents  that even the small thing can set off shell shock for this man and this explains how devastating this war was for anyone involved. Also over this we have the sound of the paellas constantly played through out the scene (diagetic sound) to emphasis the sound of the helicopter and what the ceiling fan reminds him of.

We did our own dream sequence  based on manipulating time and space. Our piece was based a student worried about an exam and started revising but he fell a sleep and then had a dream that he was late to his exam. Apocalypse now gave us the idea as in the film its a flash back representing the past. We wanted to do something similar by doing something in the present. That the dream was to make you think that he was late to something like an exam but he walks into the room where he is revising.




MTV editing. 
 This is fast paste editing that are different cuts place together to create a fast paste film.This includes fast cuts and flashes of the cuts. This was introduced in the early 21st  century was used a lot in most country's like America and most ME DC's  ( more economically developed country's).  The clip below  shows a lot of camera angles and a lot camera cuts. For example...

In this clip we can the fast changes between clips. This expresses the rush that the chicken is experiencing and all the action involved. This also represents how fast the people have to work and how busy it is in Rio. This shows the change in the type of filming type and how it has changed from slow pace filming to fast choppy editing.



Bibliography

I skimmed and scanned three secondary sources to find out more about video editing but mainly video editing montages. With these three sources I found out that montages are used to go over along period of time demonstrating history or a period of days create a series of events or a time line, however they cannot be used to create or show emotion between characters but are used to effect emotional or intellectual responses from the audience. They were first created by Sergei Eisenstein in 1925 and since then he inspired many with his creations and now they have became complex and intensive. The way they are used in films today is usually put in 

The purpose of my research is to find out the meaning and the purpose of editing and how it has changed over past 100 years. I have used many resources to use in my research that explains a lot about the history of editing from websites, books and articles.  

Secondary sources	Relevance to my project
Theory of montage www.Ewannaeuman.com Website.	This website explained the principle of montage editing and the purpose and what it wanted to give/ get from the audience. It also explained that Eisenstein inspired a load directors and the development of a montage has become so complex over the last 100 years.
The grammar of the film language A book By Daniel Arjjon	This explains how parallel editing works and has diagrams to explain what it’s mainly used for. For example, you have cameras set parallel from each other and captures different parts of the scene e.g. camera A captures the left side of the close up and camera B capture the close up on the right side.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope	I used this as evidence for Thomas Edison’s kinescope and this explained how it was used, when it was invented, how it worked and what people thought of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Arriv%C3%A9e_d%27un_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat	This told me about the cinemagraph and told me about that the Lumiere brothers were inspired by Thomas Edison to use his idea of creating film but so everyone can watch films together.
http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/melies_bio.html	I used this website to understand George Melies history of how he got in to filming and who inspired him and what he used in his films that made him successful.