History of.. Music Videos

As the project is based on creating a music video to promote my artist, i've done some research on music videos; how and why they came about.

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music. They are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s and this is when the term 'music video' first came into popular usage.

MTV was the most popular music channel which played music videos. It was launched on August 1st 1981 and in the beginning they only used to air rock and roll music videos produced by White artists.

However, Michael Jackson was the first Black artist to be shown on MTV breaking down the racial barriers with the first music video movie 'Thriller' (which was an impressive 14 minutes long). It was directed by John Landis (director of 'An American Werewolf in London') and it was released in December 1983. It has sold 9 million copies and is still till this day,the highest selling record ever and even Michael Jackson couldn't beat his own record. The genre of music was different to the usual genre that MTV aired which was 'Rock and Roll' and so this was the beginning of the crossover genres.

We had a Music Video Director 'Ben Peters' come into our lesson and talk to us about music videos. One thing i learnt was that there are so many different roles and some of them i haven't even heard about before.

These are the ones that are new to me:

• Spark: This person has the job of fixing lights.
• Gaffer: This person is the head of lighting.
• Grader: This individual fixes the colours of every shot so the shots run smoothly. They work on the quality.
• Colourist: Similar job as the Grader.
• 1st A.D: Assistant director who helps the filmmaker in the making of a movie or music video.
• PM: Photo manager.
• Focus Puller: They make sure the focus of the shot is fine.

He has directed Urban videos and worked for artists such as N-Dubz. He directed the music video for their song 'Wouldn't you'.

In this video (which he also directed) he appears in a cameo appearance. He can been seen wearing a hoody and fake beard & moustache at 0:44:

However one music video which wasn't Urban was this one:

Artist: Frankie goes to Hollywood
Name of track: Relax

This particular music video has turned Ben into a diverse director making it easy for him to attract more artists from various genres and giving him opportunities to direct their music videos.


Ben also showed us a treament he produced for the producers of N-Dubz next track 'I need you', however the job went to the director who worked with Lil Wayne.

The Q&A session with Ben was useful and we learnt that, to do something big and live your dreams, you need to start off small; Ben started off as a 'runner' who gives everyone their tea and coffee etc and then he stated talking his way in with the directors and that's how it started off for him. We've also come to know that every job for creating a music video is very important including the runner because, if for example the runner messes up someones tea then they might go and make it themselves which means wasting time. Usually a music video is filmed in one day and if it moves onto 2 days then it means more money and the director might have to take it out from his own wallet. I guess we're lucky we have have more than 1 day! lol