History of music videos

1926 - short musical films where produced due to the creation of talkies (Sound film). 

Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a performance of the song.

1930's - cartoons featured popular musicians performing their songs on camera in live-action segments during the cartoons.

1950’s - Tony Bennet claims to have made the first ever music video for his song "Stranger in Paradise" recorded in 1953. 

Music videos are promotional tools, therefore often called promotional videos or simply 'promos'. Although, during the 1980's the term Rock video was commonly used due to the popularity of this genre. 

1966 - Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues

Released a full music video for his single subterranean homesick blues. The clips ironic performance changed the way music videos were performed. 

1975 - Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody 

The video was recorded in just four hours on 10 November 1975, at a cost of £4,500.
This started a whole new era of using music videos as promotional tools.

1978 - Devo: Satisfaction 

This Rolling Stones cover feature a somewhat subversive, self-produced music video. 

Alongside this included a pioneering compilation called, The Truth About Devolution which were arguable among the first long-form video productions. 

1981 - MTV starts

The first video played was Buggles-Video killed the radio star.

This created a whole new way that music promotional videos could reach the mainstream audience.

1980's 

David Bowie gains his first number one in nearly a decade due to his eye catching promotional video of 'Ashes to Ashes'.

My Bloody Valentine - Soon

The Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey

The Male Gaze is a theory of Laura Mulvey which focuses on visual pleasure and narrative cinema. her studies are based on how women are viewed as sexual object in society and media.

The male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may focus on the curves of a woman's body, putting you the viewer in the eyes of a male.

This theory suggests that this denies women of a human identity, relegating them to the status of an object to be admired for its physical appearance. This 'masculinizes' the audience.

Women are made to feel negative about themselves when viewing other women, they pick faults with their own appearances and gives them low self esteem. Women look at themselves as a comparison and feel inferior to the woman in the media product.

Brief

A promotional package for the release of an album, to  include a music promotional video, together with two of the following options:

• A website homepage for the band
• A cover for its release as part of a digipak 
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak