History of the Music Video

 One of the first music videos made public, and by far one of the most popular music videos to date is Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. This video came about in 1975 when Queen was on tour and couldn't make it the the live MTV show, so they submitted the music video as to not miss their slot on the show. This became a massive hit at the time as videos purely dedicated to music was a rarity, and launched both the song and Queen into even more popularity than they previously had.
Another music video that is considered the 'first' is Bessie Smith's song in "St Louis Blues" in 1929. While this is the first example of a person filming themselves singing professionally, whether or not it counts as a music video is not clear. This is because this song is actually part of a short film, so it wasn't created specifically as a music video.

 Music gained massive popularity due to television channels such as MTV, whereby the audience could listen to constant music and watch the music videos. This became a popular channel among young people, as the channel had young people as their target audience. After 1st February 2011 MTV removed all music from their channel and moved it to another channel, MTV music in order to turn MTV to a more reality television based channel.
 Throughout the history of Music Videos it is clear that much more time, energy and money are dedicated to videos today compared to the music videos from the past. Currently the most expensive music video in terms of budget is "Scream" by Michael Jackson ft. Janet Jackson at $7,000,000. Compared to older music videos this is a staggering amount of money to be spent on the production of a 4 minute music video.

Richard Dyer Star Theory and Pop Videos

Richard Dyer's theory on pop videos distinguishes different videos in their relation to their music. According to Dyer, there are three different uses of a video to their music: 'Illustrate', 'Amplify' and 'Disjuncture'. If a video 'illustrates' the music, then the video's job is to visually show the audience the message that the audio attempts to show. This generally is the most popular type of music video to do, as it is easier to create a link between what the audience sees and hears, as well as it is generally easier to make from a creators point of view. However, these types of music videos can rarely become borderline boring due to a lack of interesting visuals as would be shown in other types of music videos. Therefore, if they work with a gimmick or style of directing to create the music video, trough attempting to portray the message the gimmick an become boring or repetitive. A music video that 'Amplifies' the audio has less to do with the story or  message of the music, but more shows hidden meanings that has to do with the artists in question. This could include their past, their fears or their aspirations for their career. While these types of music videos are rare and need some sort of knowledge on the artist at hand, they can be rewarding and emotionally touching if done correctly to the right audience. However, if the member of the audience isn't aware of the significance of the style or reflection that the video shows then it could be deemed boring in certain circumstances. A music video that is 'Disjunctive' to the song does not have relevance to the song or the artist, and is usually there to entertain the audience through bright colours or nice effects. While not many of these are made due to the massive amounts of creativity or budget they require, they are undoubtedly entertaining and can be followed by practically anyone watching.
Richard Dyer believes that artists are manufactured for financial gains. They are constructed through advertising, films, magazines and music videos to represent 'real people' in order to sell their brand. These artificial images are used to show the artist experiencing emotions so that the audience can relate. This gives the artists a unique selling point to make money for their record labels. Dyer claims that record labels manufacture artists to cater for different audiences knowing that they will become trend setters which leads to more financial gain.

 An example of a star is Britney Spears, who changed her image in order to be more successful in both popularity and her musical career. Her original image was an innocent girly girl, sporting pigtails and a large amount of pink. An example of this innocent persona appears in " Baby One More Time", where she appears as a schoolgirl, enhancing the idea of innocence and purity. This look was given to suit the record label she was signed with.

However, she later changed her image to be a more sexualised singer, which was in order to please the record label and to enhance her image, supporting Richard Dyer's Star Theory.  An example of this sexualised version of Britney was "Oops!... I Did It Again", where she wore a full body suit of Red Spandex. This was a much more mature version of Britney, which was created in order to please the record label and to conform to Richard Dyer's Star Theory.

Case Study- Michael Jackson

Early on in Michael Jackson's music career in the Jackson 5 the main focus was to spread his music and his videos had no story or theme, it was mainly focusing on the group. Songs like "Rockin' Robin" featured the members of the band more dominantly than any plot in the video.
 As this is one of Michaels early songs he had not yet formed a proper image on his own, and his entire 'gimmick' was his family band. Despite being the Jackson 5's frontman and most popular member, the 'funky' image didn't stick to him later on in his life.
 Later on in his career after becoming a solo artist he decided to remake himself with his own image, with one of his earliest examples of this being 'Beat It'. This is one example of the beginning of Jackson's popular image featuring his well known red jacket. This is also an early example of his image of a "bad boy"that ripples throughout the rest of his music career. This red jacket also appears in other music videos, most notably and famously in his biggest hit 'Thriller'.

Thriller was greatly influential as a music video, as it was the first to introduce: Elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue, and the concept of a long-form music video, whereby the video extends the length of the song. It cost over $500,000, yet the music company refused to pay for it all themselves as his album containing Thriller was on a downfall. Jackson was so passionate about his desired scenes that he offered to pay for their production himself, which the majority of the public would see as a wide investment once the video came out. However, MTV and Showtime paid for the video in order to broadcast it on their channels. Showtime also gained access to an hour long documentary making the video, but MTV later bought the exclusive rights to broadcast the documentary. The music video found such success that it was released on VHS Cassettes and broadcast in film theatres as a short film.

Purpose of the Music Video

Ultimately, music videos are only manufactured for two distinct reasons; To promote the artists to heighten their publicity and to make money and increase sales. It can be used to promote a song or album in order for people to purchase it, or it may be for product placement. An example of this product placement is in Avril Lavigne's song and video 'Rock N Roll', whereby the first line endorses Sony phones, an obvious product placement whereby Sony paid for the advertisement of their product.

 Music videos are also put onto Youtube as a way to bring revenue. As Youtube pays  for advertisements, a single advert on a video viewed by millions of people can bring in a lot of extra revenue. An example of this is Adele's "Hello", which at the time of making this blog had nearly 1.3 Billion views, which would bring an astonishing amount of money. 
Music videos are also created in order to promote the artist of the song, as music videos can appeal to a visual audience, bringing in more views and making more people aware of the artists presence, helping their career in the long run.

Audience Reception Theory

 Audience Reception Theory describes how audiences respond to certain texts. Each audience member will react to texts differently based on their age, cultural experiences, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

 A section of this theory is the 'Encoding Decoding Theory'. This theory, created by Stuart Hall, suggests that a text is 'encoded' with meaning by the producer, which is then 'decoded' by the audience. Texts can have multiple meaning that were encoded by the producer and different people can decode these messages in different ways. 

For example, a director of a film my encode a meaning of feminism and female power. If the audience decodes a preferred reading, they will get the same message that the encoder gave. If the audience decodes a compromised meaning then they can understand the feminist encoding, yet they might not appreciate or agree with the exact message the creator has encoded the text with. This would mainly be due to different in religious, political, cultural or more personal reasons. An opposing reading would instead completely disagree with the given encoded message, once again due t o differences in culture, personal experience, political or other valid reasons.