Timeline: Music video history (MTV)

C1900 Edison invents the gramophone in the USA: First shift from music as a solely live and audiovisual experience to recorded audio on various forms of disc.

1920s Fischinger experiments with sound/vision synchronisation on film - abstracts and visual interpretations

1927 First sound film, the Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, USA)

1930s Creation of first ‘Soundies’

1939 Introduction of the Panarom

1940s Peak period of MGM Hollywood musical

1954 Elvis Presley records ‘That’s Alright (Mama)’

1960 Scopitone introduced in France

1963 UK’s first music TV programme, Ready Steady Go (ITV)


1963 Top of the Pops TV programme begins (BBC) and The Beatles release the film and album ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (Richard Lester, UK)

1966 The Monkees’ TV Show start on NBC in the USA - used many devices like surrealism, wacky comedy, lots of action, mixed with musical performance and all typical of music video form today Band members chosen for how they would look on TV but like boy bands like The Beatles from the 1990's onwards.

1967 The Beatles release TV promos for ‘Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever’

1975 Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (Bruce Gowers)

1977 Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, USA)

1979 Buggles: Video Killed the Radio Star (Russell Malcahy)

1980 David Bowe: Ashes to Ashes (David Mallet and David Bowie)

1981 Pop Clips on Nickelodeon and MTV starts and Duran Duran: Girls on Film (Kevin Godley and LOL Crème)

1983 Michael Jackson: Thriller (John Landis) and Beginning of Country Music Television

1984 Music Box start in Europe and MTV Video Music Awards launched

1985 VH1 begins and MTV taken over by Viacom and Live Aid

1986 Dire Straits: Money for Nothing (Steve Barron) is top video

1987 MTV-Europe (MTV-E) lauched, broadcasting to 1.6m homes and Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer
(Stephan Johnson), wins best director award

1988 MTV-Europe achieves 3.5 subscribers

1989 MTV-Europe reaches 6.7 homes and Live Broadcast from Moscow Peace Festival and Madonna: Express Yourself (David Fincher), wins best director award

1900 Madonna: Vogue (David Fincher), wins best director award and Launch of MTV-Unplugged

1991 Madonna: ‘Justify My Love’ (Jean-Baptiste Mondino)

1992 MTV launches ‘The Real World’, a fly on the wall documentary following the lives of seven people sharing a New York loft.

1993 MTV launches TV Series Beavis and Butthead

1994 REM: ‘Everybody Hurts’ (Jake Scott), wins best director award and Launch of VH1 in UK and Launch of MTV- Europe Music Awards

1997 MTV UK and Ireland launches as stand-alone channel
1998 Launch of ‘Celebrity Deathmatch’

1999 Fatboy Slim: ‘Praise You’ (Spike Jonze), wins best director award

2000 Launch of ‘Jackass’

2001 Launch of MTV Dance

Our first choice of song.

Our second choice of song.

Our third choice of song.

Music director study

Hype Williams

Harold “Hype” Williams also known as “HYPE” is an American music video director and film director of african-American and Honduran descent, born in 1968. The nickname that Williams has been given “Hype” came from his behaviour as an over hyperactive and creative child. Williams first showed his work by graffiting local billboards, playgrounds, and shop windows with the tag ”Hype”. He says that this is his reason for his love of colour and design. Art and all creative visual work has been a passion of his. Williams looks highly up to the likes of Basquiat and Keith haring as his idols, claiming that he wanted to be the Basquiat of the streets.
Hype Williams has been the creator of some of the most iconic music videos particularly in the african-american music industry including:


Wu-Tang Clan "Can It Be All So Simple"
The Notorious B.I.G.– "Big Poppa" (co-directed withSean "Puffy" Combs)
Tupac Shakur feat. Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman- "California Love
R. Kelly - "I Believe I Can Fly"
Missy Elliott - "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)"
Puff Daddy feat. Faith Evans & 112 - "I'll Be Missing You"
The Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy & Mase - "Mo Money Mo Problems"
TLC - "No Scrubs"
Blu Cantrell featuring Sean Paul
Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx - "Gold Digger"
Ne-Yo - "So Sick"
Kanye West - "Stronger"
Coldplay - "Viva la Vida"
Beyoncé feat. Lady Gaga - "Video Phone (Extended Remix)"
Nicki Minaj - "Massive Attack"
Big Sean feat. Kanye West and Roscoe Dash - "Marvin & Chardonnay"


In Hype Williams early days, he used a technique in which the view of the camera was in a distorted “Fish eye” type editing effect, in which what we where viewing seemed unreal, yet enticing. Videos that include this effect is Missy elliot “Supa fly (Rain)” and Busta Rhymes “Gimme some more”.

Williams “signature style" also involves placing shots in regular wide-screen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "In My Hood" by Young Jeezy and Check On It" by Beyoncé.

Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, "Digital Girl" (Remix) by Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé's "Video Phone" and “Marvin Gaye and Chardonnay” by Big sean ft Kanye westand Roscoe Dash.

Goodwins theory applied to a music video- Rihanna (We Found Love)

HIGHLIGHTS OF RIHANNAS MUSICAL CAREER 2005- PRESENT

Rihanna is a Caribbean artist who is known for her eccentric take on music, since she entered the music scene since 2001 with her début single “Pon di replay”. Rihanna began her journey of her musical career with a highly innocent, “girl next door”persona, This helped us as audiences be comfortable with Rihanna and the music that she had to offer, nothing about her came across risqué or taboo in any way, which means that she had a very large target audience from the beginning of her career which only helped her future music attain a wider following. A year after becoming a international sensation Rihanna kept her “good girl” attitude, but included subliminal bursts of rebellious nature in her second album “A girl like me” bringing out such tracks as “Unfaithful” and “Dem haters”. After this year Rihanna already being compared to the likes of Beyonce in the media industry brought out her highly successful third album “Good girl gone bad” the name of the album describes the route Rihanna had now taken, Her persona had changed dramatically from her squeaky clean look a mere 2- 3 years earlier. Now bringing out such tracks as “Hate that I love you” and “Rehab” in her third album Rihanna had now not only changed her style of music, to a hip hop style with rock edge, but she drastically changed her hair and dress styling, making her not only a music icon but admired in the fashion industry as well. Thus making her a highly influential person in that particular year. Her two later albums reflect her hardcore side also being seen as a powerful woman, who was also battling a highly publicised domestic violence case with her ex boyfriend Chris Brown at the same time as her fourth album release “Rated R”. Rihanna has later released her fifth album “Loud” and will be releasing her sixth album “Talk that talk” in November 2011.

This music video starts off being very grey and dull, This is simply a pathetic fallacy of the way the couple in the video are feeling: Depressed and hopeless whilst this is happening there is is a voice over, of someone with a accent from the united Kingdom, The contents of the voice over is an emotional piece talking about love and life “I saw you screaming and no one could hear, You almost feel ashamed that someone could that be that important, that without them you feel like nothing, no one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless like nothing can save you and when it’s over and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back so you could have the good.” This introduces the dramatic nature of the story that is about to unfold in this video.

There are many shot of intimacy within this video between Rihanna and her on screen partner, showing that there love is in such a stage were they do not like to be apart for too long, as the music starts. There are many many more scenes of intimacy within the video including general scenes in which they seem to just be staring at each other or holding hands, Helping the viewer see there highly loving relationship.

Although Rihanna seems to be scene with her “Boyfriend” in this loving relationship she seems to be highly scantly clad in most of the video which applies to Goodwin's theory as she still has to familiarise which her loyal male fans, who might not be as interested in this love story as the female fans. She still shows off her assests regularly in this video which will entice more people both male and female to watch this video, Thus getting a bigger viewing because of the the lack of clothing that she Is wearing.

The message of this video is feeling a sense of euphoria with the person that you love, showing

scenes of flashing lights, colourfully edited cigarettes, pupils dilating. This shows the effect of both someone you love, and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, which is heavily seen in this music video. Not only is there scenes of illegal intake of drugs and stealing, but subtle scenes of intercourse and alcohol intoxication is seen. All of these things show that in this particular music video Rihanna has changed from her former “good role model” status. These four things apart from her lack of clothing show the “realness” of this music video, this is all things seen n a day to day basis for new couples seeking happiness in there relationships, this is simple something Rihanna has chosen to convey in this video.

After this highly euphoric montage of scenes that we see, The pictures seen begin to become a

lot more gritty and unpleasant, Including, pictures of Rihanna being sick and an argument in a vehicle with her on screen parter, This scene could be heavily seen as a remake of Rihannas famous fight with her real life ex boyfriend Chris Brown. This scene will be very interesting to anyone who new about this event as the model/actor playing the part of Rihannas boyfriend, Looks a lot like her allegedly aggressive famous ex boyfriend (Chris Brown). With this similarity in mind, there is a thought that this video might be a reconstruction of the real love that Chris Brown and Rihanna shared, which lead to the couples “Hopeless love” into its inevitable break up, which are lyrics of the song “We Found Love”. Nobody seems to be more dominating this video interestingly, Both the male and female leads have equal anger towards each other and are seen to care highly for each other. Rihanna is seen to have a tattoo which reads “MINE” being put on her bottom, by her boyfriend, this shows the willingness of Rihannas character as she is insisting it is to be done, which shows the seriousness of this relationship that the two share.

The video is shot in a sequence of quick shots each seen at a different scene, with different clothing. This shows that us as viewers are seeing the journey that the couple are going through. It is not just one day of love, but a while. Interesting shots including whip shots and are also seen to show the state that the pair is in after taking their drugs, everything around them is going fast and there are the only two people around. Throughout the whole video there is no interaction seen with other actors at all, Just the two of them, alone.