The Technique of Film and Video Editing, 5th Edition

 

 

CHAPTER 11

The MTV Influence on Editing I

 

 

What I have called the MTV influence on editing is principally associated with that phenomenon of the past 30 years, the music video. Initially viewed as a vehicle to sell records, those 3- to 30-minute videos have captured a young audience looking for quick, evocative visual stimuli presented as a background for the aural presentation of a single song or series of songs.

Although this style of film was further popularized by films such as Flashdance (1983) and repopularized by Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge (2005), the form has its roots in more experimental filmmaking and certainly in the success of the short form, the television commercial. The MTV style is today principally associated with television, ...