The history of music video

Early history

Music and moving images have long gone together.
The ‘soundies’ were an early version of music video 3 minute musical films, they were produced in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The films were displayed on the Panoram, a coin-operated film jukebox or machine music, in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centers.

1920’s/30’s

With the arrival of the sound films and talkies in 1926, many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (1926–30), which were produced by Warner Bros, featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. The series entitled Spooney Melodies was the first true musical video series. The shorts were typically about six minutes in duration, and featured art deco style animations and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing the song. This series of shorts can also arguably be considered to be the earliest music videos. (wikipedia)


Begginings of mtv

MTV (initialism for Music Television) is an American cable television network based in New York City and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV)
Artists began to take the need for promo for every release seriously. There was also the changes in technology and a gap in the cable market.

1960’s promos

One of the earliest performance clips in 1960s pop was the promo film made by The Animals for their breakthrough 1964 hit "House Of The Rising Sun". This high-quality colour clip was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set, it features the group in a lip-synched performance, depicted through an edited sequence of tracking shots, closeups and longshots, as singer Eric Burdon, guitarist Hilton Valentine and bassist Chas Chandler walked around the set in a series of choreographed moves. But it was The Beatles which made everything popular in the 60’s including the music video.
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British comedy film written by Alun Owen starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was directed by Richard Lester and originally released by United Artists. The film was made in the style of a mock documentary, describing a couple of days in the lives of the group.
It was successful both financially and critically; it was rated by Time magazine as one of the all-time great 100 films (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day's_Night_(film))