History of Music Videos - Scopitones

Having done some research into the history of music videos, I found some interesting information into how music videos were shown in earlier years. The method I looked into was Scopitones.

Scopitone films are seen as the 1960 ancestors of the music videos of today. These were distributed on colour 16mm film and were made to be shown on a Scopitone film jukebox. The first scopitones were made in France in the 1960s and had spread throughout the Europe and America by 1964. However by the end of the 1960s, Scopitones ceased to exist.

With the introduction of the Scopitone came several competitors, these are explored below:


The Cinebox was an Italian film jukebox that debuted in 1959. It entered the market in Europe almost at the exact same time as the Scopitone. It entered the U.S. market in the spring of 1963, which was well before Scopitone, but was never as popular there as Scopitone. In 1965, the Cinebox was renamed Colorama in the US and in 1966, it was completely redesigned as the ultra-stylish Cinejukebox.




Another competitor to the Scopitone was the Color-Sonics. This debuted in mid-1966, with films made by Official Films at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. The jukebox used 8mm magnetic-sound film cartridges. Color-Sonics also made 16mm prints of at least some of its films so that they could be shown on a Scopitone jukebox. The 16mm prints have often faded miserably over the years.

Audience Research Ideas

The three audience research ideas that I had were:

Focus Groups - this idea would be suitable if the data that I wanted to generate was qualitative as it produces much more in depth answers and will allow me to be more analytical as opposed to answers that I would get from a survey. This is because a survey would produce more statistical information as the type of questions I would write on a survey would be close ended.

Online Polls - This method would be suitable as it would reach a much wider area, therefore the information generated would be more likely to represent the general views of everyone as opposed to focus group where it is only a small number of people. On the other hand, this may not be the case as it could create a one sided view because people that are likely to view blogs are young people. It would also be the least time consuming of the three as making a poll is quick and easy compared to focus groups and interviews.

Interviews - this idea would also generate more qualitative data as the questions asked in an interview would be open ended and allow the interviewee to elaborate on their answers. However this method is very time consuming as the most effective way of doing it would be to interview one person at a time and you are unlikely to get an accurate view of your target audience by only interviewing a small number of people. This can be a good alternative for focus groups as some people may not feel comfortable with expressing their opinions with other people.

Genres Research- Gospel Grime and R'n'B

Gospel Grime

Gospel Grime is a new genre that has recently grown in popularity. The most popular Gospel Grime artists of today are Guvna B and Victizzle. I think that they are popular in their genre because they have provided a new way to enjoy Gospel music, something fun, upbeat and something that gets their target audience dancing. Another reason as to why I think that they are popular is the fact that they have diverted from the typical 'gospel choir, oh happy day' type songs that seem to dominate the genre and have provided a refreshing alternative. In terms of the generic conventions of music videos in this genre, costume is usually bright, funky, youthful. This is reflective of their target audience.

Here is a video of Simply Andy - Bibles, Bibles:



Rhythm and Blues

The most popular Rhythm and Blues artists of today are Alicia Keys, Beyonce and Usher. I think that they are popular because they produce several songs that have lyrics that their target audience can relate to. The generic conventions of music videos in this genre are the typical storylines which are normally about relationships or a break up. Costume of the artists tends to be quite glamourous.

Here is a video of Usher - Yeah!



A generic convention in this music video is the rap star that features on the track. Having a rap verse is common in RnB music videos.

Lipsynching Evaluation

I did two lipsynching tasks. The first was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and the second was Common People by Pulp. These tasks has helped me understand the problems that I will come across when lipsynching in future.

There were several things that went well. With Bohemian Rhapsody, the people that were in the video were comfortable being in front of the camera. This made the whole process much easier when it came to editing because everyone was pronouncing the words properly and having fun with it. This also made the footage much more fun to watch because everyone was looking at the camera and not looking down reading the words.

There was some room for improvement in Bohemian Rhapsody. The main one being that in the line 'Galileo' there was overlapping which made it much harder to edit and showed that we didn't really listen to the music properly. If we had, then we would have had two people saying 'Galileo' directly after one another, the shot would have been in sync.

In the Commom People lipsynching task, the main problem I had was people being comfortable in front of the camera. I, on the one hand, was perfectly fine singing in fornt of the camera. However my partner didn't enjoy it as much and the fact that he wasn't as comfortable really showed when it came to editing as there was quite a contrast.

Another problem that we had was the fact that although we were singing along sometimes we didn't really open our mouths to pronounce the words so when it came to lining up the footage with the track, it wasn't really in sync.

Advice that I would give my future self on effective lipsynching is to make sure that the person who is going to be singing in front of the camera is completely comfortable with being there otherwise when filming they won't really want to do it. I would also advise the people that are filming to be singing along with the person so that they can encourage them. This will help them relax and you'll have much better footage to work with when it comes to editing.

Finally, I would also advise my future self to film a vast range of shots not just of your actor singing along to the track but of other things for example scenery as this will give you something to cutaway to and prevent long takes of the same shot, which is very boring to watch.

Peace,

Maria :)

Lipsynching - Bohemian Rhaps

This is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. 

Lipsynching - Common People

This is Common People by Pulp.