By Jumana Ismail

The Music Video Industry

What is a Music Video?

A music video is a short film which is accompanied by music/song made up of lyrics and/or beats that is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Music videos are vital and an essential product in the music industry as it enables the artist to advertise their song in a more interesting and captivating way. In addition, through music videos, artists are able to impress the audience with their acting or dance skills which portrays them as more talented in the media and therefore the audience prefer listening/watching them more as it is a source of entertainment. Therefore, music videos contribute in the success of an artist as it attracts a wider and more diverse audience. This will therefore lead to an increase in sales of the music and popularity of the artist which will then lead to a high influence on the consumer throughout a global market.

History of music videos. How are music videos made?

Lately, music videos are used as a clever marketing device that is intended to promote the sales of the artists music. Music videos were around for many years, however they were popularised by MTV when the company based their format around the ‘medium’. In the 1980’s, music videos were referred to as ‘illustrated songs’ or ‘promotional video’. The first ever music video to be played on MTV was ‘video killed the radio star’ by The Buggles.

Music videos are made using different types of illustration that includes narrative, animation, documentaries, performance or a non-narrative approach such as an abstract. the wide range of styles of music video tend to merely depend on the genre of the song. For example, according to my previous research, I have accumulated the fact that music videos within the Indie Folk genre tend to use narrative based music videos. However, soul and rock music videos tend to use a lot of performance based music videos.

The notion of music videos originating from musical films is popular. For example the movie ‘Diamonds are a girls best friend’ in the 1950’s led to short form music videos. In addition, Tony Bennett created a mini video clip that consisted of him walking along the serpentine in the famous Hyde Park in London. By Bennett doing so, this lead to a popularity in may artists making small music videos that mainly started out as performance based.

Music videos play a vital role in an artists career.

As I have previously mentioned, a music video has the ability to popularise an artist as well as impact on the growth of their career.

For example, Madonna, the very famous American pop artist gained more recognition and fame due to the high influence of music videos that depicted her as a very talented and ‘sexy’ dancer which therefore led to her gaining a wider audience. Madonna's music videos became a fixture on MTV, and until this date, Madonna has released 67 music videos.

Madonna’s first music video that led her to gain attention as well as recognition was called ‘Borderline’ and then for the song ‘Lucky Star’, a music video was released along side.

The production process of music videos

The production process of a music video is vital as it makes up a huge percentage of the final product, which leads to audience consumption. The only way the audience will consume a music video is by having a well planned production process that would hopefully lead to a successful product. There are three main stages in a production process that include:

-The pre-production: This stage consists of the research and planning behind the music video, the scripting and the storyboarding and deciding on the locations. By thoroughly researching and planning, the likelihood of a better product increases.

-The actual production: This stage includes filming the actual music video and recording it.

-The post-production: This stage is everything that comes after the filming which consists of editing, finishing touches, and creating the final master copy.

Furthermore, there are also other vital stages in the production process that enable the production company to advertise and start selling or promoting the music video. They include financing, which is one of the first things that need to be done, screenplay and distribution.