Bohemian Rhapsody – ‘the first music video?’
The video opens with a shot of the four band members in near darkness as they sing the acappella part of the song. The lights fade up, and the shots cross-fade into close-ups of Freddie Mercury (lead singer). The video then fades into them playing their instruments. In the opera section of the video, the scene goes back to the "Queen II" standing positions, and they then perform once again on stage during the hard rock section of the song. In the closing seconds of the video Roger Taylor is appeared to be stripped to the waist. All of the special effects were achieved during the recording, rather than editing, with the honeycomb illusion being created by using a shaped lens.
The video is credited with being the ‘first genuine promotional video’ (http://www.queenonline.com/history/) and the video that began the MTV age as it was entirely shot and edited on videotape. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first to be available to any TV station willing to play it, for promotional purposes. The video was originally produced so that the band did not have to mime to such a complex song on Top Of the Pops. After its success music videos for singles became regularly used by artists and record companies. The video was recorded in just 4 hours and the cost came to £4,500. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_rapsody#Promotional_video)
It has created a legacy and is accepted as the first music video. It contrasts very much to music videos today as its simplicities are so different to all the special effects, costumes and synthetics etc that are used today.
Air date: November 1975
Credits:
Director: Bruce Gowers
Cameraman: Barry Dodd
No comments:
Post a Comment