Reflecting: Summer Work

In June I briefly learned about Music Videos, what they’re for and their purpose. Music videos are a videotaped performance of a song which sell a song in a particular way so that an audience will remember. They’re made to entertain people and for us as the audience to see the artist in a different perspective. On the 1^st August 1981 Music Television was founded. MTV was a music channel that was aired 24 hours, 7 days a week which aired at 12.01 a.m that day.  The first video to be aired on MTV was Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star” which took $50,000 to produce. MTV made it possible for the audience to watch and listen to music at the same time which changed the way music reached out to the public.  I learnt about 2 music videos that had a major influence on the music industry and the success it brought. On 2^nd December 1983 Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was the most influential pop music video of all time. Thriller is a staggering 14 minutes long video. It’s the first video released worldwide, played twice an hour on MTV  as well as that it cost $500,000  to produce selling 9million units.  In 2009 Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video made records of its own. Within the first 5day, Telephone had 30million views on YouTube with 7.4 million digital copies sold. Unlike Thriller, Telephone is a 9 minutes long video but had the same budget of $500,000. Extensive product placement such as virgin media helped fund the video. What was different to the video was that the music video had credits which aren’t a typical convention for a music video. Both of these are events music videos meaning that it’s a staged video that has a narrative.

Another thing I learned was about Andrew Goodwin interpretation of music videos. He talks about how MV’s are built around the lyrics and not with a narrative structure, the artist is used as the narrator and the main character and also the singer breaks the 4^th wall by looking directly into the camera to engage the viewer.