History of the pop video

Bessie Smith was in a short film in 1929 called St Louis Blues which had a dramatic performance of the song. This video had long shots that would last for a longer period of time compared to videos now a days , and they only used two or three camera angels such as: mid shot, long shot. also the camera was not just focused on the singer but would show more of what is happening with the other people. I think they did this to show more of the backstory of the song. The pace of the video was very slow which led to the music video being longer compared to the videos that we see now. On the other side, this short film was shown at the cinemas for four years. This was because the audience didn't have anywhere else where to watch the video so whenever they would go at the cinema they would watch the video of this song. also because it was show for so long it became a popular song.



Bing Crosby was the biggest star in the world in the 1940s. White Christmas (1942) is the movie that he is mostly known for. In this film we see him singing and different from Bessie Smiths song, on this song the camera focuses on the singer more. We see more of Bing Crosby by the camera shots which are mostly medium shots of him singing and playing the piano.



Frank Sinatra replaced Bing Crosby as the worlds biggest star. When we see his concerts we realise that everything was only focused on him and also we see that he is dressed in a costume and so are his background singers. Therefore we know that Frank wanted his audience to be focused on him and his group and not makes the audience choose who is better by the way they dress or so. Frank Sinatra was also seen in movies such as New York, New York - On the town or High Society.




Elvis Presley had started to change the way that singers was seen. He had his hair done well with gel and he wore suits but not correctly as in he would leave the collar undone and not match his jacket with his trousers. By this we see that Elvis was trying to give the music a different. He was also seen the movie Blue Hawaii where he is around lots of girls which is different from other music videos where boys or girls have been on their own.




The Beatles
The Beatles appeared on Top of the Pop which was a hard thing to do at the time as they only played songs which were at the top of the charts.  They all was dressed the same so that the audience would like them all the same and not pick out any of them. We also see that the camera shows all of the boy band and not just the lead singer. The Beatles also starred in a movie called 'A Hard Days Night' where they were seen differently from any other boy band. They show their real selves on the movie and how funny and cheeky they are. I think this was made to show all the fans how they really are and not just how they are shown in their concerts. This was important for their carrier as no one else had done it before, therefore people liked them more for what they do differently.

Later on they made their own music video which included lots of different camera angles, also they did lots of close ups of they faces and extreme-close ups of their eyes. I think this was used to make the audience connect with them seeing as they only shout at their concerts and not pay attention. This would make their fans feel like The Beatles are looking straight into the fans eyes which made the fans love them even more and want to watch their music more. They were also shown this way because their music was changing so their performance had to change too. They needed to be more playful and cheeky because of the songs they sang.




Top of the Pops 
Top of the Pops was a show which was first broadcasted in January 1964 on BBC1. On this show you would only see the top songs on the charts which would make it harder for the singers to have a good carrier and have a big audience. This was watched a lot at the time because they didn't have many channels so they would wait so long just to see a few songs on the show. Top of the Pops was taken down around 2006 because viewers had more choices of channels and they could listen to music whenever they wanted to.

MTV launched as a new channel in the 1980s' with their first music video being 'The Buggles - Video killed the radio star'.  This music video was something very different from the other videos people was used to seeing because they had lots of shots from different angles and lots of editing of things that dont happen in real life. They also added kids in the video which meant that they were targeting any age and gender. They also had a different way of performance and they would dance and move around in the music videos as the song was going. MTV was changing the type of music that people were used to listening and seeing. It also showed songs all day long which was so much different from the show Top of the Pops, therefore people could watch any song they liked and didnt need to wait for the Top of the Pops to come on.