TOP 10 MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSIC VIDEOS:

1. Michael Jackson - Thriller (1983)
At £360,000, the most expensive music video of its time.
2. OK Go - Here It Goes Again (2006)
Filmed in one continuous take, it took 17 attempts.
3. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time (1998)
Filmed in the same school as hit movie Grease.
4. A-Ha - Take On Me (1985)
Showcased groundbreaking special effects, including actors interacting with sketched animation.
5. Johnny Cash - Hurt (2003)
The house in the video was Cash's home for 30 years but was destroyed in a fire in 2007.
6. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
The famous flames at the start were put in later, once it hit No.1.
7. Daft Punk - Around The Word (1997)
Features dozens of dancers dressed in different outfits who gradually fill the stage.
8. Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice (1999)
Features Deer Hunter actor Christopher Walken dancing in an empty hotel.
9. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (1986)
Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park helped animate this video
10. Beastie Boys - Sabotage (1994)
A parody of 1970s US TV crime series like Starsky and Hutch.

HISTORY OF A PERFORMANCE/NARRATIVE MUSIC VIDEO

MTV really took off in 1981. This created a major new era for the music era and was really when people started realising that you could do more with a music video, like put a narrative or concept to it instead of just generally having the video being the artist performing.
A perfect example of this is Madonna's first music video in 1982, Everybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOqr_x_9fMc
One influential videos that really set of the concept idea was Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0

This video features stop-motion animation which was a huge hit in 1986 and influenced many bands not only then but has continued bands even now to use that technique in their videos. A perfect example of that most recently is Coldplay's song Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyMhvkC3A84
Although this is a lot more elaborate and definitely a lot more complicated and dynamic, it still follows the same theory of taking loads of photographs to fit together to make a video. I love this effect and would love to try it out one day as I think its really interesting and innovative.


MTV:

On August 1st 1981 MTV broadcast its first ever music video "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles. Although The Buggles pretty much disappeared and although everyone knows the song very few people would recognise the band, MT V became an enormous franchise and to date the company owns more than 50 channels in 28 languages and 168 countries.

Some say that MTV has become more about reality programming than about new music. Its long-running show THE REAL WORLD debuted in 1992 and has been followed by programs like PIMP MY RIDE, JERSEY SHORE and LAGUNA BEACH. To argue against the complaints that MTV is just for reality now, MTV President Christina Norman says the channel is still about music and has a sister channel MTV2 and MTV Overdrive (networks online part, which has over 9,000 videos on demand, interviews, concert footage and news). It is claimed that MTVs audience spends as much time on MTV Overdrive as they do watching the classic MTV.



People have been making music videos for many years now, and they have a much bigger importance than they did when they first began.
Like i have said, performance videos have been around since the very beginning as what would be the point in doing anything else in a music video (so they thought).
The performance video has not only continued throughout the development of music videos but has also developed its self.
At first videos were very basic with band/artist just singing to an audience, often using footage from actual concerts. Not only do we still see this now, but we also see a lot of performance based videos integrate a lot of narrative of concept. This is to keep the audience interested whilst still trying to make the individual feel personal with the artist.

All videos have narrative in them, because they all have to be based around some sort of concept or story. Therefore, like performance videos, narrative stories have always been around, if only lightly.
Narrative music videos as we know they didn't come about until a few years later.

CONVENTIONS OF A NARRATIVE/PERFORMANCE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRM70Jw7F4M

Above is the link to the Kelly Clarkson's - My Life Would Suck Without You music video.

I hope to have the mixture of narrative and performance aspects within my music video as this video portrays.

CONVENTIONS OF A NARRATIVE MUSIC VIDEO:

• Usually follows the story that the song its self its trying to portray
• Generally has a relationship narrative with a boy and girl falling in and out love
• Although is showing a story still has short snappy shotsjust like in a classic music video
• Often involves miming so that it doesn't come across as a short film but is part of the story so won't generally be on a stage or with a band and microphone but integrated into the video
• Doesn't usually include more than 2 or 3 main actors because the story shouldn't need it too and the consumer doesn't won't be able to create a relationship with too many characters with the short amount of time there is

CONVENTIONS OF A PERFORMANCE MUSIC VIDEO:

There are generally two routes a performance music video can take. On path they could go down is when the band/artist is infront of a croud, sometimes using footage from one of their past concerts, and blasts out the song. This is done to make the consumer really think they are part of the event and really want to be there.

The other thing they can do is a bit more intimate. This is when the band/artist is usually a small room or blacked out area with a series of lighting effects and just sings and performs to the camera. There is no audience. This makes the consumer feel like the band is playing directly to them and creates something personal

For both types of performance music video lighting plays a major part in creating the atmosphere that the artist is trying to get across



PROS AND CONS OF MAKING A NARRATIVE MUSIC VIDEO

PROS:

• You can often take into account what the song is about to help choose what you want your video to be about
• The script/storyboard doesn't need to be as tight and clear as it would have to be on a short film
• Acting can be a bit looser (direction can be less specific) 
• Song will tell the actors how to act
• Pop songs are simple to interpret (for example nearly always based on a simple break up/relationship storyline)

CONS:

• You have to write a script
• You can end up just portraying what the song is about without any interesting ideas
• You need a good, able-bodied cast to make sure it looks less armature
• You have to have a clear storyboard
• It may end up looking like a short film (if you don't include things like lip-syncing)
• Choosing one song and sticking to it

GENRES

MUSIC VIDEO

ORIGINS:
Due to the fact that moving image video cameras weren't invented until around the 1920s, and music has been around since anyone can remember its not a surprise that music videos are quite a new aspect of music in the long run of things.
The first time we saw the premature ideas to what has lead to todays music video was in 1894 when  a sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song The Little Lost Child.
Thomas projected, using a magic lantern, a series of still images onto a screen simultaneous to live performances. This later became a popular for of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step towards today's music video.
In 1902-1917 was the Phonoscene era. Phonoscene was a big development within the sound film industry. It was a combination of a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film shot and actors lip-syncing to the sound recording. The recording and film were synchronised by a mechanism patented by Leon Gaumont in 1902. The first phonoscenes were presented by Gaumont in 1902 in France.
Next came the talkies, soundies and shorts during 1926 to 1959. In 1926 many musical short films were produced thanks to talkies. Then a technology called shorts was produced by Warner Bros. which featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. These finally lead to the Spooney Melodies in 1930 which was the first true musical video series. Shorts usually last 6 minutes and featured Art Deco-style animations and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing.
Another form of music videos were one-song films called "promotional clips" made in the 1940s for the Panoram visual jukebox. These were just short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of soundies were made.
Other important aspects of todays music video was musical films. Several well known music videos have been based of come straight out of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to 1950s.
The 1950s were a big year for music videos. A segment was aired on NBC which showed a live orchestra for the recorded event. In 1957 Tony Bennett was filmed walking a long Hyde Park in London as his recording of Stranger in Paradise played; this film was then distributed in UK and US television stations. 1959 is the year that it is thought the phrase "music video" became used as a defining term of what was yet to come.
In the late 1950s and into 1960s the Scopitone (a visual jukebox) which was invented in france. It displayed a short film by the artist and was then accompanied by their song. This idea then spread to several other countries like the Cinebox in Italy and the Colour-Sonic in the USA.
For the next decade several directors and producers experimented with videoing artists lip-syncing to their songs in studios and other different locations and then editing the audio and video together.
One of the earliest Videos of a Top 40 hit was Jan & Deans's Surf City which was produced in the summer of 1963 on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. This video is still available for download and viewing on YouTube.com.

After all this music videos started to finally take shape and a huge turning point for music videos was when The Beatles started making a series of films. They started off with a quite simple idea and then onto make more lavish videos. After making several videos they started doing promotional clips (known as insert films) for distribution and promotion in other countries (mainly the USA) to promote their new music. You can also get a DVD with several of The Beatles music videos on today.
1967-1973 brought the growing importance of promotional clips. Then from 1974-1980 was when we first saw the signs of music television. Australia was an early adopter of the music video format as was New Zealand. The United Kingdom had the long-running British TV show Top Of The Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s although the BBC had strict limits on the number of "outsourced" videos TOTPs could use. After this bands started realising promo videos for new singles and long running shows produced and aired videos. In the United States american alternative punk rock group Devo created many self-produced music videos which were released on video cassette. These were arguably some of the first true long-form videos productions. Their videos "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise" was the first to use computer and traditional animation.
Music videos became mainstream during 1981 to 1991. The US video channel MTV launched in 1981 airing the ever popular "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning of an era of 24-hour-a-day music television. With this new outlet for videos, by the mid 1980s it played a big role in popular music marketing.
1992 - 2004 brought the importance and rise of directors. In december 1992 MTV began listing directors of the music video with the artist and song credits. After 2005 the internet played an even bigger part to the development of music videos. After years of improvements and developments to music videos we are finally left with lyrics videos. In 2010 after the major move to internet, we've seen the official rise of the "lyrics video". This is just based on having the song playing, with the lyrics coming up on the screen in time, similar to the class sing-a-long kids game.