Planning - Scopitones

HISTORY OF THE MUSIC VIDEO; SCOPITONES

 In the late 1950s, a company called Cameca in Courbevoie, France, came up with the Scopitone. Scopitone was a cross between a jukebox and TV, the Scopitone was created after soundies. There are two main functions of the scopitone, the first is to demonstrate and present a story of the song, the second was to make it look appealing to the audience. Sexual Objectification of women play a big part these videos to attract more views from people. Scopitone's were deliberately made exotic as it was designed as a form of entertainment to appeal the target audience of drunk men in bars and clubs. The wild colours , suggestive dances and bikini girls in the films were supposed to distract men from their drinking long enough for them to put more money into the machine to see what else might be there.The costumes women wore in these videos emphasises the sexual objectification as they were very revealing and they dances in an over sexualised way. for example they wore very short dresses and shown cleavage. this was all to attract a wider audience and for people to want to watch the video.                                                                  

Neil Sedaka's ' Calendar Girl' was a good example of how women were represented in these Scopitone's, they were shown wearing very exotic clothing, the video included Las Vegas Show girls, Bikini girls etc. He was surrounded by these women as he sang the song. This video was very pleasing and entertaining to the audience as it incorporated the main features of a scopitone needed to attract the target audience of men.