Slave to the rhythm : animation at the service of the popular music industry
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 1995
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The use of animation has been associated with some very successful music videos. Prior
to its use by the popular music industry animation had been used in combination with
music since the days of the 'follow-the-bouncing-ball' cartoons produced by the
Fleischer Studio in the mid 1920's. The Disney Studio devoted an entire series of cartoons
to the visualisation of music called the Silly Symphonies which culminated in the
feature length animated film Fantasia. In so doing Disney and his animators set the technical
standards by which subsequent work in the field has been measured. They also
established the aesthetic base. This was challenged by the Fleischer Studio in the 1930's
and also often parodied by the Warner Bros. Studio.
Half a century later the popular music industry turned to animation, amongst other film
and video forms, in the production of the first wave of music video. The global cable
television station MTV consolidated the connection between pop music and animation
with the production and screening of a series of animated logos for its corporate identity.
Between the activity in the 1920's and the advent of music television there have been
various attempts by other studios and by individuals to visualise music. In most of these
instances images have been created in response to the music. The soundtrack has preceded
the visuals. This is contrary to normal practice in film and television production
where the music is not composed until after completion of the editing. But here the music
was privileged and the animation was, so to speak, slave to the rhythm, as this thesis will
show. Not only did the music take precedence over the visuals in production but the identifiable
image of the pop stars involved in the videos took precedence over any animated
effects. This suited the needs of the popular music industry which saw the videos as
a marketing tool for the promotion of musical product. Once again the Disney aesthetic
was challenged and reworked.
Establishing the emergence of a new aesthetic of animation set to music is the basis of
this research. It will be seen that music and animation have certain commonalities.
Accordingly, the method of structural analysis employed in this thesis is similar to both
a musical score and an animation bar sheet and is employed to uncover the multi-layered
nature of music videos. After a brief introduction to this new aesthetic I will review current
theory on animation and music video. There follows a short history of American
animation set to music with some references to European experimentation. The research
model is designed and then applied to three music videos. The analysis of these videos
shows the nature of the new animation aesthetic and how in music video the animation
is indeed a slave to the rhythm
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