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Scopitone
Visual innovation in the late 1950's was the Scoptione, a visual jukebox, which was invented in France, and short films were produced by many artists to accompany their songs. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Colour-Sonic in the USA were patented. -
A Hard Day's Night
In 1964, The Beatles starred in their first feature film 'A Hard Day's Night', directed by Richard Lester. The entire video was shot in black and white and presented as a mock documentary. It was loosely structured msucial fantasia interspering comedic and dialogue sequences with musical ones. -
The Kinks
In the UK, The Kinks made one of the first "plot" promo clips for a song. For their single "Dead End Street" in 1966 a miniature comic movie was made. The BBC reportedly refused to air the clip because it was considered to be in "poor taste". -
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were pioneers in producing promotional films for their songs including "San Francisco: Film", directed by Anthony Stern, "Scarecrow", "Arnold Layne" and "Interstellar Overdrive", the latter directed by Peter Whitehead, who also made several pioneering clips for the Rolling Stones between 1966 and 1968. -
Growth
Between the years 1967-1973, promotional clips grew in importance. Many "song films", often refered to as "filmed inserts" at the time. They were produced by UK artists so they could be screened on TV when bands could not appear live. -
Top of the Pops
The long running British TV Show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970's, therefore a good video would increase a song's sale as viewers hoped to see it again in the following week. -
Ashes to Ashes
In 1980, David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to director David Mallet's eye catching promo for "Ashes to Ashes". -
Madness
Another act to succeed with this tactic was Madness, who shot on 16mm and 35mm, constructing their clips as "micro-comedic" short films. -
MTV
The US video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed The Radio Star" and beginning and era of 24-hour-a-day music on TV. -
Michael Jackson
This video was the pioneer of the 'Storyline' video which has a plot, almost like a 'mini' movie. It contains sophisticated visuals and it took the music industry to another level. Now music videos were really being seen as promotion and made into high-budget productions. -
Romanek
2 of the videos directed by Romanek in 1995 are notable for being 2 of the 3 most expensive music video of all time, Micheal and Janet Jackson "Scream" which cost $7mil to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story", cost $5mil, "Scream" remains the most expensive video of all time. -
YouTube and others
The website YouTube launched in 2005, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier. Other websites also launched such as Google Video, Yahoo! video and video functionality was added to websites such as Facebook and MySpace. -
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga's music video "Bad Romance" made headlines by becoming the most viewed video on youtube and the entire internet of all time, music related or otherwise, with 130mil views; it had over 430mil views by 2011.
