Tiki Toki Music Video Timeline

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1925: Gus Visser - His Singing Duck: The first music video was a middle shot of Gus Visser as he commands his singing duck. It looks to be a stage production recorded. There are no cuts or extra shots, its all under one take of Gus standing with his duck. This could be due to the technical difficulties of the time or could be the theatre production aesthetic they wanted to record and stick

1929: Bessie Smith - St.Louise Blues: This is the earliest music video similar to what we would be familiar with today. It was shown in cinemas. It was one of the first blues song to be accepted, or credited, into being pop song. The music video could be a factor toward its success.

1956: Tony Bennett - Stranger In Paradise: Many people support the idea that this is the first music video as it was the first to be played on UK and US television. This would lead to the eventual rise in popularity of music specific television; MTV. The video was filmed in Hyde park, London. The music video would have been a strategy to increase popularity of the song which proved successful as the song was number one for two weeks in the UK.

July 6th 1964: The Beatles - A Hard Days Night: A crucial moment in music video development, it followed John, Paul, Ringo and George live a normal day in the life of the The Beatles. It laid the foundations of modern music video conventions when shooting The Beatles perform songs. Conventions including close up of singers and instruments, establishing shots of the whole group and audio syncing. It is therefore credited in being one of the most influential musical films of all time. The director was Richard Lester and starred The Beatles playing themselves. It had a budget of £200,000 and continued to make £12,000,000 at the box office being a commercial success.

February 13th 1967: The Beatles - Penny Lane: Continuing to innovate with their music videos Penny Lane included unusual camera angles, dramatic lighting and editing that fit with the music. The music video saw them riding horses through London, not Penny Lane. As they were no longer touring watching them film music videos was the only time fans could watch them perform.

October 7th 1969: The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back: Late sixty introduced more professorial editing techniques like 'Chroma-Key'. This innovation in editing led to the 'Cross Cutting' technique. This was when the video would portray the story in the lyrics and then cut to a close up of the artist singing.

October 31st 1975: Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody: This music video led to the introduction of music television starting with 'Top Of The Pops'. It would promote the music by showing the music video or having a live performance of the song. The show aired on the BBC. It also started to use special effects and was a high budget video for the time. It including effects like dissolving which was rare in a music video for the time.

September 7th 1981: The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star: This was the first video to be shown on MTV. Short for music television; a channel purely devoted to music videos and live performances. Artists would premier their music videos on MTV. It increased revenue for the artist and the TV channel and allowed artists to be more than just musical, music videos allowed them to have more of a personality. 'Video Killed the Radio Star' had a high budget for a music video at the time including editing techniques like 'Overlapping' which normally would only feature in film.

December 2nd 1983: Micheal Jackson - Thriller: With a running time of nearly 14 minutes 'Thriller' pioneered the story element of music videos. It contained quality filming almost like a mini movie than just a music video. Modern music videos can take this approach making music videos one of the main elements in their work. It holds a place in the Guinness book of world records for being the most successful music video ever made. It was premiered on MTV.

May 15th 1985: Prince - Raspberry Bere: Effects shown at the time were revolutionary. Along with Thriller this made music videos accepted a lot more as a medium of film and art.

October 19th 1984: A'ha - Take On Me: This music video took 16 weeks to finish and used the technique 'Rotoscoping'. It involved colouring on a scene shot be shot. This proved how much a song now relies on its music video as it was the only way of marketing a song at the time.

February 1st 1986: The Replacements - Bastards Of Young: This video features a 4 minute shot of a speaker supposedly playing the song. Its an anti big budget message and would class under parody/experimental in Metz theory.

February 1990: Primal Scream - Loaded: Loaded was an introduction to psychedelica. This involved high levels of effects used in the music videos with a wide variation of shots. The colours also changed during scenes. This was replicale of the time and the music.

March 22nd 1994: Blur - Parklife: Damon Albarn and co enlisted Phil Daniels most know for the lead role in 'Quadraphlia'. He acted and narrated next to Blur. This was a big thing for British music videos as it wasn't often a celebrity would be associated with British music videos. It made Blurs song a lot more popular.

November 24th 1997: Prodigy - Smack My B1tch first video to be banned from MTV as it featured high amounts of drugs, violence and sexual intensives. It followed a night out in London featured from a first person prospective. The unedited version features a full sex scene, fights and heroin use. This caused MTV to ban the video not allowing it to be shown. Feminists didn't like the video as they believed encouraged violence inflected toward women while some people praised the video as it challenged the stereotypes as behind all of the mayhem was a woman. It shocked and for this i would relate it to experimental on the Metz theory. 

January 4th 1999: FatBoy Slim - Praise You: This in one of many music videos directed by critically acclaimed film director. This was be to increase buzz regarding the song and maybe even for the director. It introduces music videos to the wide medium of film, its audience and its critics. Its also probably very fun for the directors.

March 26th 2001: Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood: Damon Albarn, frontman of Blur, teamed up with Jamie Hewlett, writer of the comic book 'Tank Girl', to create a band called 'Gorillaz'. The music was a mix of HipHop to TripHop to Funk and Soul. It featured characters designed by Jamie Hewlett. The music videos saw these animated characters perform. Liam Gallagher said in an interview the music was for kids. Damon and Jamie loved this is they saw it as kids enjoying music influenced by early reggae and soul than the other pop in the charts at the time. The music videos were a huge push for the band. In later efforts the videos featured actors like Bruce Willis with full 3-D renditions of the animated band. They created a band that doesn't actually exist and the fact that when people hear the main singers voice they see the animated character and not Damon Albarn is staggering. They both hid behind these animated characters and could say what they wanted when speaking through them.4

February 28th 2008: Vampire Weekend - A Punk: A punk used simple but effective techniques like stop and start animation, blue colour filters and finger puppets it fits the song perfectly proving you don't need high production values.

January 10th 2010: Lady Gaga - Telephone: Recognised as a trilogy telephone and paparazzi make up this is Gaga's attempt at creating a film like sequel to a music video understanding the true potential explored. I would call this a deconstruction as some of the scenes highly replicate popular pop culture films again, introducing bridging storylines, thinning the gap between film and music video.

November 26th 2014: Beyonce - 7/11: Beyonce is known as a huge impactful artist being one of the most influential women of modern times so people were expecting a huge blockbuster video when her new song 7/11 dropped however it was more amateur  It featured Beyonce dancing around her house to her song. It featured editing to fit the music but it didn't look like a lot of money had been spent. It was refreshing and simply shown that music videos don't have to be huge blockbuster features to make an impact.

April 1st 2016: Kanye West - Famous: Kanye West is the fuel for modern pop culture; his clothes, his opinions and his music impact so much. He is one of the most controversial but influential figures in modern time so when he announced a music video for his new song a lot of people didnt know what to think. The end product features twelve completely n@ked celebrities all lying in bed together being filmed from a series of angles. Its a waxwork. The celebrities feature Kanye and Kim along with Taylor Swift, Bill Crosby and Donald Trump. Kanye highlighted every relevant person in society. Some people think its only to get people talking and thats a bad thing but thats exactly the purpose of it. Putting twelve n@ked celebrities in a bed will get people talking, increase buzz, trend on twitter purley because its controversial, has a shock factor. The video was steamed to an audience in LA and only available via TIDAL; Kanyes own steaming service.

Extracting Information From Written Sources

EDITING TECHNIQUES 

Cut - A visual transition created in editing in which one shot is instantaneously replaced on screen by another. 

Continuity editing - Editing that creates action that flows smoothly across shots and scenes without jarring visual inconsistencies. Establishes a sense of story for the viewer. 

Cross cutting - Cutting back and forth quickly between two or more lines of action, indicating they are happening simultaneously. 

Dissolve 
A gradual scene transition. The editor overlaps the end of one shot with the beginning of the next one. 

Editing  - The work of selecting and joining together shots to create a finished film. 

Errors of continuity  - Disruptions in the flow of a scene, such as a failure to match action or the placement of props across shots. 

Establishing shot - A shot, normally taken from a great distance or from a "bird's eye view," that establishes where the action is about to occur. (1)

Eyeline match - The matching of eye-lines between two or more characters. For example, if Sam looks to the right in shot A, Jean will look to the left in shot B. This establishes a relationship of proximity and continuity.

Fade - A visual transition between shots or scenes that appears on screen as a brief interval with no picture. The editor fades one shot to black and then fades in the next. Often used to indicate a change in time and place. 

Final cut - The finished edit of a film, approved by the director and the producer. This is what the audience sees. 

Iris - Visible on screen as a circle closing down over or opening up on a shot. Seldom used in contemporary film, but common during the silent era of Hollywood films. 

Jump cut - A cut that creates a lack of continuity by leaving out parts of the action. 

Matched cut - A cut joining two shots whose compositional elements match, helping to establish strong continuity of action. (2)

Montage - Scenes whose emotional impact and visual design are achieved through the editing together of many brief shots. The shower scene from 'Psycho' is an example of montage editing. 

Rough cut - The editor's first pass at assembling the shots into a film, before tightening and polishing occurs. 

Sequence shot - A long take that extends for an entire scene or sequence. It is composed of only one shot with no editing. 

Shot reverse shot cutting- Usually used for conversation scenes, this technique alternates between over-the-shoulder shots showing each character speaking. (3)

Wipe - Visible on screen as a bar travelling across the frame pushing one shot off and pulling the next shot into place. Rarely used in contemporary film, but common in films from the 1930s and 1940s.

180 Degree rule - This involves the camera not going past a line between two people so the viewer doesn't get confused between prospective. 

Book Reference(2)

Magazine Reference (6)

HISTORY OF FILM EDITING

Film began with 'Thomas Edison', an inventor and businessman best known for inventing the lightbulb. He invented the kinetoscope. The kinetoscope was a peep show devise mainly shown at circuses around America. It could show 50 foot worth of continues viewing which made the illusion of a moving image. This would have been the first time people would have seen a moving image at the time making it revolutionary. This was around 1888.


After 'Thomas Edison', around 1895, two brothers in Paris were inventing something similar mainly however for commercial purposes. They were called the 'Lumeier brother', Lumeier being French for light. The first film recording on this devise was called 'Arrival of a Train at the Station' and was once again shown around American circuses as an oddity. (4)


In 1903 the medium of film grew further when French theatre director 'Georges Melies' directed and produced the first motion picture feature length film. The film was based roughly on two novels and was called 'A Trip to the Moon'. Georges realised the potential with film and instead of filming a train like everyone else he wrote and directed a story with a full plot. This involved editing. It was the first film to have cuts, dissolves and some post production special effects. This has been parodied a lot in modern pop culture.

Also in 1903 came 'The Great Train Robbery'. Directed by 'Edwin Porter' it also featured a plot, special effects and editing. The special effects at the time involved drawing on each individual frame to gain a super imposed object in the scene. The great train robbery was also shown in American circuses and has many iconic scenes. The themes also explored by 'The Great Train Robbery' were a new concept explored for film; the theme was dark and involved criminals, guns and death. (5)


The first film to be shown in theatres around America was 'DW Griffiths' 'Birth of a Nation'. It was a documentary as such exploring Americas history. Shown in 1915 it is seen by many as the first respected film. Modern directors call 'Griffith' the godfather of film. Many say it set the guidelines for narrative filmmaking creating the concept of genre. It was also controversial however glamourising the religious racist group, the KKK. This shown how the medium of film can impact and change views for people proving the powerful medium. Instances like this continued to be used in the Nazi propaganda movement.

1925: Seen as Hollywoods golden years. They were known to churn out film mostly for the money benefits  Genres included Western, Film Nior and Gangster. This was because people liked to know what they were going to get when going to the cinema. Across Europe and Russia however directers were trying to be more creative. Eisenstein, situated in Russia was exploring ways of portraying meaning through editing and film without offence or speech. His most famous piece of film was 'Battleship Potemkin'. Highly praised for its amounts of symbolism used throughout, it follows the events witnessed during a riot at Battleship Potemkin. What started of with rotten food ends with the sailors raising the red flag trying to ignite the revolution in their home town.
The whole film uses a montage a scenes expressing feelings toward death, revolution and suffering. An example of it using montage is by showing a scene of a cow getting slaughtered following a riot scene. He saw symbolism as being similar to Japanese letters; two together would make a completely different word. This all required him to have high amounts of quality editing throughout.

Bibliography

1. Mastering film . 2007. Good Video Editing Techniques to Consider. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.masteringfilm.com/good-video-editing-techniques-to-consider/. [Accessed 27 September 2016].
2. Clark, V., Baker, J. and Lewis, E. (2002) Key concepts & skills for media studies (Hodder Arnold publication). 7th edn. London: A Hodder Arnold Publication.
3. film/editing terms . 2012. Film/Editing Terms. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.zerocut.com/tech/film_terms.html. [Accessed 27 September 2016].
4. wikapedia . 2016. History of film editing . [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editing. [Accessed 27 September 2016].
5. InfoPlease . 2015. History of editing . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.infoplease.com/cig/movies-flicks-film/fade-brief-history-editing.html. [Accessed 27 September 2016].
6. Mark Ramey (2014). Media Magazine. Compton terrace London : emagazine. 23

Mr. Holder feedback 27th September

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