All music videos have the same purpose and therefore have generic forms and conventions. Andrew Goodwin has identified some key features in music videos which can be seen from the early music videos.
Len lye (1935) created one of the first music videos for ‘A Colour Box’. This music video was also used as an advert for the post office so from the beginning music videos were used to promote. In the video there are a lot of fast moving patterns that complemented the music. The movement became more upbeat with the music. This applies ones of Andrew Goodwin’s conventions ‘there is a relationship between the music and visuals’.
As time went on the music video developed further, in the 1940’s the ‘Soundies’ were introduced. These were three minute long music videos with stars such as Carolyn Gray, Liberace, Stan Kenton, Gale Storm, Kay Starr, Doris Day. In these videos they started to introduce the idea of a narrative with the visuals illustrating the lyrics. Performance shots were also introduced with the focal point on the main singer and the band in the background. By then they had started to experiment with editing, with cuts from medium shots to medium close ups etc. However editing had not yet been developed, it didn’t have flow and was static.
In the 1960’s Scopitone was introduced. They showed the idea that a woman is a prop by having them dancing in the background and sexualizing them by having close up on the women’s legs. However by this time editing had developed further in ‘Copacabana’ montage editing was used to show juxtaposing photographs. Also in the 1960’s ‘The Beatles’ released music videos again the editing techniques had developed further and The Beatles were using special effects like superimposing shots. In the 60’s music videos started to experiment with performance shots and started performing on location. By the 60’s colour film had been developed so now videos were in colour and this was another improvement made.
Many people say that the first music video was in the 70’s; Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, this was the first music video that really had an effect on the popularity of the single. The editing was a lot more sophisticated and used dissolves, split screens and superimposed shots. Lighting was used well in this video to compliment the music. By now the music video follows most of Goodwin’s key feature of a music video.
