RESEARCH

this is the home work from mr. kemps class about early music videos

a) what sort of format did it use
b) what was its purpose

1. The illustrated song (1990's)

a). The format of an illustrated song was very different from the music videos these day, most people will not see it as a music video but more of a slide show. the way they would be shown is with 12-16 glass slides which would be projected on a screen whilst music was played by mainly a live pianist and/or vocalist, the slides would be pictures which would relate to the lyrics or song being played by a live person or piano simultaneously as the music. the glass slides where in black and white and because they were on glass they could be painted by hand to make they more appealing. in some the last slide had words to the song's chorus so that the audiance could sing along.

b). These illustrated songs were used commerically to make money, these illustrated  music were played between changing reels and where very popular in advertising popular music.before radio was in its prime, live performances was the main way in which music would be heard by the public and then sold onto sheet music.
                                                 

example of sheet music

when illustrated songs came, music publishers realized the potential of advertising sheet music through these illustrated songs, therefore many sheet songs where sold in theatres with pictures of the slides on them.

as far as music videos go this is very different from music videos we have now, in fact more differences can be picked out rather that similarities for example

• They were shown in only the theaters (no modern day hardware like TV)
• only had 12-16 slides which was just stills, (lacked the "video" concept of music videos)
• they had music played live rather than recorded and synced in with the video
• quality was bad in slides
• music was played live (this could be more of an advantage compared to less vibrant recorded sounds of these days)
• hardware used to project them was very different 

although this was a very early version of music videos it was immensly popular in america and was loved by many as it was new technology to them, according to wikipedia at least 10,000 theatres in america featured them.
 here is an example of an illustrated song "the lost little child" VERY popular back then.


 here is another but this one was painted in colors.