The earliest ancestor of the music video can be traced back to early animated cartoons, which were often accompanied with a musical background. Walt Disney’s animated shorts, called Silly Symphonies, and the Warner Brothers’ animated Looney Toons and Merry Melodies were all centered around the music they featured. However, 1938’s film Alexander Nevsky highlighted big battles scenes that had all been choreographed by Sergei Prokofiev. This film is largely considered the first music video and in 1940, Walt Disney released his film Fantasia, in which all of the action is structured around classical pieces of music. The next step was television. The first musicals made for television distribution were the Snader Transcriptions, which were used as filler from 1950 to 1954. The Snader Transcriptions covered all genres of music, but mostly focused on popular music styles. As rock and roll started to gain popularity amongst the youth culture, it began being featured more and more predominantly in musical videos.
By the 1980s, it was expected that if you released a single, you would make a promotional video to go along with it. The Jacksons pushed the envelope by creating videos with multi-million dollar budgets and extravagant sets. In 1981, MTV made its debut. On August 1 st, 1981, MTV showed its first music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. When it debuted in Europe, its first video was Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”, which leads off with the line “I want my MTV”. MTV’s programming was a continuous stream of music videos separated into segments by commercials and occasional chatter by VJs, or video jockeys. Why was this idea for a cable channel so genius? First off, MTV’s programming was, in essence, advertising. Record companies, wanting to promote their artists and increase record sales would either pay MTV to run their music videos or give them to the channel free of charge. MTV’s second brilliant idea came from the fact that they aired commercials as well as the music videos. So what? Doesn’t every channel have commercials? Yes, but MTV found a way to earn money from advertisers in exchange for showing their commercials during the music videos, which were also, essentially, commercials. MTV was getting free programming, if not being paid for it, and getting money from advertisers.
CONVERGENT TECHNOLOGY - THE ENTERTAINMENT PHONE The competitor of the PDA’s and blackberries today is the entertainment-based cellular phone. In past years cell phone owners have seen an increase in the features phones have to offer, such as the addition of digital cameras, mp3 players, and gaming features. In 2002 phone companies began to offer cell phones with digital cameras, with storage capabilities for up to 100 photos, even if the picture quality was low. Since then the quality of the cameras in phones have improved and now a range of cameras is available, the image quality ranges from 640 x 480 Pixel VGA Quality to the most sophisticated 1 Megapixels camera phones. Some newer phones include zoom, automatic timers, night mode, streaming video and video recorders. Cell phones are picking up the improvements in regular digital cameras and including them in the new models. You can use your phone to take and then email photos to friends, and even shoot short video clips. New models include Bluetooth, which allows downloading photos and video onto your computer without using your phone minutes.
Another growing market in cellular phones today is the inclusion of Mp3 players. In recent articles, executives from Real Media have made statements that as early as next year, the bottom could fall out of the MP3 player market. This assumes that people will move towards Finally, another entertainment option on the cellular market is videogames. This also looks like it will be a growing field, as most phone manufactures are securing contracts with video game companies such as Electronic Arts who are designing new games every year specifically for cell phones. Games can be leased monthly for $1.50-300 or bought permanently for $4-7.50. Sales of this kind in 2004 were around $394 million for the US market, and this is projected to increase to 1.8billion by 2008. Companies hope to capitalize on the youth market, those who have grown up with hand-held videogames and now own cell phones. An example is the Nokia N-Gage (Below), a phone built especially for gamers. It combines wireless multiplayer gaming with full color 3D graphics. N-Gage gamers also have access to the worldwide N-Gage Arena community, where they can play games online wherever they receive cell service.
Recently new improvements in technology, like decreasing hard-dive size is allowing phone makers to advance their hybrid creations even more. Samsung recently announced that the SPH-V5400, (available in Japan) is the first mobile phone to include a hard drive. This phone has 1.5gb of space, and costs around $800. Phones take advantage of these technologies and are becoming ‘everything’ cell phones. Soon we’ll carry one portable electronic with us; and it will be a cellular phone. Here is a look at recently released LG's (Cyon) KP4000 (May 2005) available in Korea. It is a wonderful example of converging technologies in a cell phone. This LG cell has an MP3 player, QVGA display, 1.3 megapixel camera, FM tuner/transmitter, bluetooth, and GPS.
CONVERGENT MEDIA - BUSINESS PHONES Why be stuck at your desk all day when you can just slip your desk and secretary in your pocket. That is what the inventor Mike Lazaridis and his company Research in Motion, have conveniently done for those in the busy business world. They say it started off as a device about as big as a hamburger. Now it can fit in the palm of your hand. For those who don’t know what the BlackBerry is, its one of the latest inventions that combines a phone, email, organizer and browser all in one! These PDAs have many advantages that many companies help them to stay organize and connected in a much more efficient way. This latest technology is in great thanks to one of the top ten technology inventors named Mike Lazaridis (Below). He is the CEO of his company, Research in Motion. In 1998 they launched the BlackBerry and since then they have been extremely successful in the wireless world. Many in
Mike Lazardis, founder of Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), oversees all product development and operations at RIM and is responsible for the development and ownership of several patents for Digisync, software code, and radio technologies. Mr. Lazaridis has received the “Mr. Lazaridis’ achievements are an inspiration,” said Mo Elbestawi, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, McMaster University. “He reflects what can be accomplished through vision, inventiveness, dedication and determination. He also demonstrates the role engineering plays in developing a strong and vibrant society. RIM has been a strong supporter of the faculty.” Tmobile has also come up with a version of the latest PDA that they call the SideKickII. This combination consists of a camera, phone, an email account, Instant messaging, internet access, an organizer and text messaging. The size is 5.1 x 2.6 x .09 inches with a 240 x 160 resolution screen. And right now they are offering the SideKickII for free with a mail in rebate. To check out more information about getting yourself or your company a BlackBerry, go to www.blackberry.com.
Digital production and distribution methods are no longer the industry exception in Hollywood, a specialty reserved only for big-budget directors like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. Considering, “that of the twenty-five highest-grossing movies of all time, all but two were effects films… that is, films that rely on digital effects or [digital] animation” (Picocolo6), it is obvious that digital technology is now the industry standard.
CITATIONS http://www.answers.com/topic/music-video http://www.revolution9.com.br/fotos/YELLOW/LIVROCapa.jpg http://www.libertycornercomputing.com/marketing/mtv-logo.gif http://www.1800mobiles.com/camera-cell-phones.html http://www.n-gage.com/en-R1/gamedeck/ngage_qd/gaming/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/12/technology/personaltech/gates_cellphones.reut/ http://www.blackberrycool.com/2005/05/02/00405/ http://infranet.uwaterloo.ca/infranet/s200001.htm http://www.dapreview.net/news.php?extend.1564
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We all know what today’s music video is: a short film that is set to a band or artist’s popular song. The collaboration of music and moving images is not new, by any means, but just how did the modern music video come to fruition? This article will explore how the medium came to be and how today’s purveyors of music videos, MTV (Left), struck gold with their idea for a cable channel.
This paved the way for films such as The Beatles’ A Hard Days Night, Penny Lane, and Yellow Submarine (Right). These films, as well as short, song-long films, were used to promote The Beatles’ music in the United States. Other bands, such as The Doors, hopped on the bandwagon and began promoting themselves this way as well. Soon, it was commonplace for a band or recording artist to record a short film to accompany a song of theirs.
buying cell phones with built in hard drives to house their mp3s. Bill Gates seconds this opinion, telling a German newspaper in a recent interview, "If you were to ask me which mobile device will take top place for listening to music, I'd bet on the mobile phone for sure.” Recently many of the companies that offer mp3 downloads have begun to aquire contracts with phone manufactures. 
What they came up with is instead of having to carry around all these different devices, to combine them all into one to make life easier. And just think of all the possibilities with the new and improved PDAs. The convenience factor alone has been one of the main selling points. The BlackBerry (Right) has an actual key pad, in order to make sending text messages and emails from the actual phone easier and faster. 
