Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" was a breakthrough in music videos for a number of reasons. Though it wasn't necessarily the first time an artist had made video clips to accompany songs - it was only after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that it became regular practice for record companies to produce promotional videos for artists' single releases. These videos could then be shown on television shows, such as the BBC's Top of the Pops, without the need for the artist to appear in person. A promo video also allowed the artist to have their music broadcast and accompanied by their own choice of visuals, rather than dancers. According to guitarist Brian May, the video was produced so that the band could avoid miming on Top of the Pops, since they would have looked "off" miming to such a complex song. The video has been touted as that which helped launch the 'MTV age' due to it being the first video to ever be widely aired on British TV.

The video was directed by Bruce Gowers, who had directed a Queen video prior. The video was recorded in just four hours in November 1975, at a cost of £4,500. The video opens with a shot of the four band members in near darkness as they sing the a cappella part. The lights fade up, and the shots cross-fade into close-ups of Freddie Mercury. The composition of the shot is the same as Mick Rock's cover photograph for their second album Queen II. The photo was the band's "favourite image of themselves."


All of the special effects were achieved during the recording, rather than editing. The visual effect of Mercury's face cascading away (during the echoed line "go") was accomplished by pointing the camera at a monitor, giving visual feedback, a glare similar to audio feedback. The honeycomb illusion was created using a shaped lens. The tail end of the video sees it transition to live footage of a performance of their's, before closing on the original underlit shot. Again, this video illustrates the importance of promoting the artist themselves within a music video (whether it be performance or narrative) and how this can be related to Goodwin's ideas of typical conventions for these videos. In taking inspiration from these shown examples for our own work - we have decided that featuring our 'artist' in the video itself is imperative.