Purpose of Music Videos

A music video is designed to promote the artists and their music due to the appeal upon their target audience, allowing the audience to coincide their opinions and views and to remember the artist or band. A music video has to include certian codes and conventions; for example: if making a hip hop video the codes and conventions would include: expensive jewellery "bling", flashy cars, big houses, expensive clothing, aggressive dogs, flat caps, tattoos, attractive girls. These characteristics usually have underlying meanings relating to the song which is why the audience watch and listen because they can aspire to be, in this case; rich, famous and popular.

Music videos are about how a band/artist portrays themselves towards their audience for example: an upbeat dance song sang by Eric Prydz - call on me, is mainly focused on woman, in tight petite clothing who are exercising. The idea of this is to create an image to the audience to remind them of what the music entails, whereas if one is more interested in heavy rock such as: Slipknot, the appeal of genre is completely different. The audience will expect to see painted faces, long hair, band wearing black, playing a musical instrument and having no coordination of dancing.

Music videos have a wide history, the first music video is claimed to be Tony Bennett’s ‘stranger in paradise’, where it is a film of him walking along Hyde Park in London. The 1950's, in order for bands to promote their music they had to travel across countries and cities playing their songs repeatedly this however became tiresome, so people began to experiment with 'music promos'. The videos would consist of the band/artist playing on stage and then it was recorded, copied and distributed around the world. This was ideal for the bands because it meant saving themselves time to concentrate on promoting more of their music without losing time travelling across countries. The 'music promos' became more well known during the 1960s but keeping the videos low budget giving the target audience what they want to hear.

Televisions became more and more popular in UK households as the 1960s passed meaning bands were able to take advantage and produce more 'music promos'.

In 1961 Ozzie Nelson filmed a video of his son, Ricky, singing and showing various parts of the world, this was believed to be the first ever rock video. From here music videos moved on to what we now know, the first evidence of this was in 1962 where the Beatles major motion picture ‘A hard days night’ contained many musical segments. These segments are what most videos now are taken from. 1966 is when Bob Dylan made the first real music video, ‘homesick blues’ which has been imitated in other music videos, films, and parodies.



The Beatles released their famous video 'Strawberry Fields' which ranged in full colour and concentrated on using techniques such as: slow motion, reversed film and obscure camera angles. These elements were uses of techniques from films taking music promos to a whole new level.



However in 1970s music promos were still very basic. The artists concentrated mainly on their singing using a plain background, keeping the image simple. The industry preferred to keep the music promos basic without any distractions because they believed it was what the audience wanted. David Bowie with his hit single 'Life on Mars' consisted of him singing in front of a white background. 1975 Queen released their music video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which is considered a landmark in music video history.



Australia was a key element in the development of music video broadcasting as it began making shows to host these videos. The British show 'Top of the Pops' began showing music videos since the early 70s. By the 1980s music videos were known world wide. 1981 as technology had developed and a vast majority of people owned a television a great interest was shown in America as the Music Television Programme was launched more commonly known as 'MTV'. The first song to broadcast was 'Video killed the Radio star' the title of the song dominated the change during that time which was clever. People were listening less and less to their radios and were focused more on Television.

From this revolution, music videos then began a new era, where the Directors themselves start to become famous for their work, the Internet becomes video friendly and another new medium for people to watch them is opened.

Promotion
An artist or a band create music videos to promote themselves. To be able to successfully promote their music video they have to identify their goals by targeting as many of their audience as possible creating a fan base. Unlike larger artist who have a record label they needn't worry about promotion. Whereas smaller artist begin their journey by releasing a single upon radio. As listeners hear the track the fan base increases and gradually "spreads the word" therefore the artist or the band create their music promo which is then released onto Television Music Channels such as; MTV, Kerrang or KISS. Depending on the genre of music, dictates which channel the promo will be played on targeting the desired audience. The video will get air time, and from that people will start posting the video up on websites such as YouTube, and Myspace.

The world is focusing on live streaming and downloading videos, the best place to find them and distribute a video is the internet. Millions of people surf the net to identify new music and experiment with their different tastes in genre. YouTube is a great example for new talent and small video promotions, it is free to use, open to everybody worldwide and is a faster way to become known than broadcasting on radio or television. Esmee Denters is an 18 year old, female artist who became known for singing "What goes around" (original by Justin Timbelake) uploaded to YouTube. Esmee started off imitating famous artists, when she performed her own music she was an instant hit on YouTube and has since appeared on dutch tv shows like Life & Cooking and Jenssen. More recently she has actually had the chance to perform with Justin Timberlake and has been signed by Tennman records. Without having a record label to back you up it is impossible to broadcast ones videos upon MTV or Kerrang which is why big artists such as; Lily Allen and The Wombats started off through the internet because that is where companies are most likely to search.

Another way to promote a Music Video, is through interviews and live performances. Even though the percentage of people watching TV around the ages of 16-25 is very low, they tend to watch music channels more often. Or a particular show which is based around those ages will contain music acts, for example the show called T4, usually runs on the weekends, and hosts a mix of 'teenage soaps' as well as exclusive music interviews and performances. If an artist was to get on that show and talk about their music, then play the song which was made into a video, people will hit the internet yet again to find the video.

Extension of Income
The extension of income is how one will fund their music video by either relying on your record label to do it or yourself fund it. It is not necessary for one to spend extortionate amounts of money on producing their music video because if you have reliable contacts you may be able to get some work for a small price or if you know of a friend who maybe a student working on promoting their portfolio it would be ideal to take the opportunity for free. The cost to pay is for extra items due to the set and props etc.

In the year 2000, prices for a low budget Video were around about £150,000 these videos were produced by big artists behind the biggest labels. However if you are able to control your money there is no reason why you should spend above £10,000. However, if you are a small artist the easiest and most successful way to fund your video is through interviews on television, in magazines and during live performances around the country. Through all this publicity it is likely that an artist would be able to fund themselves. To gain success and a larger fan base once the artist has made their video, it is ready to upload to the internet on sites such as; YouTube The fans are relied on to 'spread the word' gradually the video will become recognised and requested upon radio shows. Each time the video is played upon the radio the artist/band gains royalties hopefully leading them to be noticed by a record label. Resulting in this the artist/band can mass market their video and other songs they have created meaning their income will increase, pointing them to produce larger videos.

Extension of Outlets
Music videos are much easier to access in this day and age due to the improvement within technology, downloadable and streamed content. This is very powerful in helping to raise sales as the publicity and views of the video is greatly increased by the internet and this generation’s usage of it. Record labels do have jurisdiction there and can remove any of the videos made by its artists at any time, if they feel their rights are being abused.