A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie ins and merchandising could be used in toys or marketing campaigns for food and other products.
Although the origins of music videos date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they came into prominence in the 1980s when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by various terms including “illustrated song,” “filmed insert,” “promotional (promo) film,” “promotional clip,” “promotional video,” “song video,” “song clip” or “film clip.”
Music videos use a wide range of styles of contemporary videomaking techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation, music, and live action. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variation it presents to the audience.
Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song’s lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the song’s live performance. Product placement is a common technique in music videos, exemplified by the appearance of the Beats Pill in numerous hip hop videos.
Unofficial Music Videos
Unofficial, fan-made music videos (“bootleg” tapes) are typically made by synchronizing existing footage from other sources, such as television series or movies, with the song. The first known fan video, or songvid, was created by Kandy Fong in 1975 using still images from Star Trek loaded into a slide carousel and played in conjunction with a song. Fan videos made using videocassette recorders soon followed.
With the advent of easy distribution over the internet and cheap video-editing software, fan-created videos began to gain wider notice in the late 1990s. Videos are sometimes known as OPV, Original Promotional Videos (or sometimes Other People’s Videos). A well-known example of an unofficial video is one made for Danger Mouse’s illegal mash-up from his The Grey Album, of the Jay-Z track Encore with music sampled from The Beatles’ White Album, in which concert footage of The Beatles is remixed with footage of Jay-Z and rap dancers.
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