Zara Griffen's BTEC Media Blog: The purpose of the music video

This essay will be an analysis and break down of the purpose of music videos.  Including the emergence of music videos, the promotion of artists and the extension of various media outlets. The first form of music video was introduced in 1941, by the Panoram Soundie which is a jukebox that played short music video clips along with music, this hit clubs and bars around in the USA. Shortly after 1941 in 1962 British television invents a new form of music television with shows like Top of The Pops, Ready! Steady! Go! and Oh,boy  as artists and bands become huge hits. Twenty years later, Micheal Jackson's short film Thriller  released this really changed the concept of music videos especially after The making of Thriller  was released it became one of the best selling VHS to date.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyclqo_AV2M&list=PLmo4pBukfRoN8SB5RKvfiY9CTl9pI_IFc 

The Beatles song 'We Can Work It Out' helps promote the band. The music video has the bands name on the skin of the drum kit, As they perform the song they are stood next to the drum kit this is promoting them as an artist, and as a brand. The drum skin logo, helps promote the artist, you may not know who the artist or band are, seeing the logo in the video will help the band when new audience's listen to their music.

Directors can also be promoted through a music video. Tame Impala's song 'Feel Like We're Only Going Backwards' is directed by Joe Pelling and Becky solan. Both of these directors are previously known for a web series called 'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'  The visuals for both the music video they directed and the web series give a strange and unusual thought, the audience like that both videos are similar showing the directors true work.  

This music video by Sia uses actor Shia LaBeouf and young dancer Maddie Ziegler. Most of Sia's songs are represented with dancer Maddie Ziegler expressing some type of emotion, this is very consistent when people see this young girl, they think of Sia's music and vise versa, this is a good producing strategy it promotes other artists as well as the singer. Sia never stars in her own music video, this is because she does not like her own appearance, her producers and directors of each music video have used this to her advantage by adding celebrity dancers and actors. 

Music videos are also made for an extension of income for the artist and the record label. When each song is played the artist and label will receive payments and royalties for the use of their song.  YouTube is a popular media outlet to get their songs heard. YouTube videos can then be shared through twitter and Facebook, this making it slightly harder to track each views on the video therefore making the income harder for artists and record labels.

This leads on to extension of media outlets, as mentioned above, YouTube is one of the most popular media outlets for music videos, but the videos on there can be shared with other social media outlets such as face book and twitter, giving the audience more variety to watch the artists content. Other than YouTube and social media outlets, Television is a popular source of watching music videos, for example Kerrang, MTV and starz. MTV launched in 1981 and started broadcasting music videos daily.  MTV went on to continue with music videos, but there main focus is reality TV, such as MTV Cribs. 

Synergy in media related to the promotion and selling of a product. Walt Disney is the most famous, He gave other companies the rights to use Mickey mouse in other products. Mickey mouse is now seen everywhere, on television adverts, on clothing and even on cereal. 
An example of this is Captain America. The logo of Captain America is owned by marvel. But consumers can buy almost anything with the logo on it. Such as clothing, cereal and even stationary. This helps both companies as they both make a good profit and it helps promote the film. 

I personally think that music videos are popular because they show the artist, or they show other celebrities. This gives the audience a feel of how the character dresses, and copy if they wish to do so.  This also helps clothing brands as the clothing the singer wears could become popular.