The video industry at the beginning of the '80s, -it was the Wild West.

-No one, sometimes including myself, knew what the ....

I was doing.

It's harder to come up with something original now.

Back in the '80s, it was all original.

(Kevin Godley) Nobody really knew what it was supposed to do, but the possibilities were endless.

(Steve Barron) It was hit-and-miss.

I did some dreadful videos, and I got some really good ones out of being brave.

(narrator) Nothing captures the style and exuberance of the '80s like the emergence of the music video.

A new group of London-based star directors were born, pioneering video techniques through a combination of inspiration, perspiration, and creative genius.

Video Killed the Radio Star presents The Music Videos that Shaped the '80s.

(Queen) ♪ Is this the real life?

♪ ♪ Is this just fantasy?

♪ ♪ Caught in a landslide ♪ ♪ No escape from reality ♪ (narrator) "Bohemian Rhapsody" is widely regarded as the visual extravaganza that kick-started the music video revolution.

♪ ...and see ♪ (Roger Taylor) Really, it was an easy way out for us.

It was a way that we could get on top of the pops without actually having to go there because we'd just started our tour.

We were sort of allied to this outside broadcast unit which actually filmed sporting events for ITV.

So we thought, why don't we just get them into Elstree, where we were rehearsing, and film it?

♪ To me ♪ (Nick Rhodes) For our generation, "Bohemian Rhapsody" was hugely important because, firstly, it was number one for weeks and weeks and weeks, so we all actually got to see the video because we didn't have any video channels back then, and in fact, not really until sometime into the '80s.

That had a big impact, the first time you'd seen a band make an effort to do something special for a song.

♪ Will not let you go ♪ ♪ Never let me go, ah ♪ ♪ No, no, no, no, no, no, no ♪ And when it came out, people were really talking about it.

It had really broken a bit of a mold and challenged everybody to kind of come up and surprise everyone, both musically and video-wise, because I think musically it was so extraordinary that people were just, "What is this?

This is so fascinating."

And so I think the musicians were inspired and the videomakers were inspired.

♪ So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?

♪ (Tim Pope) A structure that followed the song was achieved for the first time with "Bohemian Rhapsody," and that never had been done before.

And in a way, it came along at the time where, you know, it was seen to push the song to number one, and it stayed there for 13 weeks, or 12 years, I don't know how long it was.

♪ ...right outta here ♪ (Roger Taylor) We did very quickly realize the power of the video then because it was on top of the pops week after week after week, and we'd be sitting in a bus somewhere watching it and thinking, "Blimey, this is good, we don't even have to go there."

♪ Nothing really matters ♪ ♪ Nothing really matters to me ♪♪ (bright piano music) ♪ (dramatic music) ♪ (Bob Geldof) When "Mondays" came along, it was about this event that I saw in America, this girl shooting her schoolmates and her teachers.

It was the first school shooting.

It's now become, unfortunately, a bit more familiar.

And I wrote this song, but most people thought it was about not wanting to go to work on Monday and having that hangover, still do.

So I wanted to move it away from what it was really about, but I wanted to allude to it.

-♪ Tell me why ♪ -♪ I don't like Mondays ♪ I wanted schoolchildren in it, and I remembered a scene from Village of the Damned where these schoolkids, they have these eyes that just look at the teachers.

(David Mallet) We lucked out in a big way on that day because one of those random schoolchildren that were brought in was really spooky.

(Bob) Yeah, the little beautiful boy with the blond hair.

(David) Yeah, but he was evil as well.

He probably is the nicest man in the world now.

(Bob) I also like things to be rooted in a normality, so there's a Coronation Street thing in there, isn't there?

And then I wanted it to be us being video-ish and modern.

I just sketched down the only ideas I had, and he had to pull it together.

(David) He used to draw them and then put them under my nose.

I didn't need glasses in those days.

(Bob) Children of the Damned, you know, which he hadn't seen, of course.

(David) You lying ..... That's one of my favorite films.

I had a VHS of it.

And it was called Village of the Damned, anyway.

Can't even get the title right, and he says I'd never seen it.

♪ And all the playing's stopped in the playground now ♪ ♪ She wants to play with the toys a while ♪ ♪ And school's out early and soon we be learning ♪ ♪ And the lesson today is how to die ♪ (Bob) It's a very dark subject, but only six weeks in did the Daily Mirror spot it, and they found the father of the girl, who railed against us and was gonna sue and all this, but the fact is, I never mentioned her name or anything else, and she's still in jail.

She wrote to me saying she was glad she'd done it because I'd made her famous, which is not a good thing to live with.

-♪ Tell me why ♪ -♪ I don't like Mondays ♪ -♪ Tell me why ♪ -♪ I don't like, I don't like ♪ -♪ Tell me why ♪ -♪ I don't like Mondays ♪ (Bob) It became so big as a medium for us.

After "Mondays," it was absolutely essential that we make a video.

(David) In fact, you didn't really listen to a new record anymore for a period of a couple of years.

People didn't say, "Have you heard the new Rats record or the new this record?"

It's, "Have you seen it?"

♪ The whole day down ♪♪ (vocalizing) (gentle piano music) ♪ (vibrant music) ♪ ♪ Do you remember a guy that's been in such an early song?

♪ ♪ I've heard a rumor from Ground Control ♪ ♪ Oh no, don't say it's true ♪ (David Mallet) There were two videos I made in that year which completely surprised me with their effect on the public.

One was "I Don't Like Mondays," and one was "Ashes to Ashes."

It never ceased to amaze me how what a huge effect they had on England 'cause England hadn't really seen music videos like that before.

♪ The shrieking of nothing is killing ♪ (Wayne Isham) "Ashes to Ashes," I saw that video and went, "Oh my God, what is that?"

That just blew my mind.

It twisted everything up, and like, I want to do that, and I'll do anything I can to do that.

♪ But I'm hoping to kick but the planet is glowing ♪ (David) When you're given a track and someone says, "Make a video," sometimes it's absolutely dead easy, it just comes to you like that, and other times you fiddle around for a week and you can't think of anything.

With Bowie, it's a genuine collaboration because he knows exactly what he wants.

The discussion was, "I wanna be a clown, I wanna be on the beach, and I want some Modern Romantics with me."

Then I say, "Well, wouldn't it be great if the sky was black?"

And then he would say, "Yes, and we can have a burning brazier."

And then I would say, "Yes, and then we can do the scene from Quatermass where you're plugged into a spaceship."

And we would say, "Great, and I can hang like this."

And I said, "Yes, great, we'll extend your veins out to the spaceship."

From an initial concept of his, within probably an hour, we had something fleshed out.

And then, thank you very much, Mr. Bowie, then you've got to work out how to do it, which would be relatively easy now but then wasn't easy.

♪ Ashes to ashes, funk to funky ♪ (David) Well, the hard bit with "Ashes to Ashes" was to get the sky to go black without ruining everybody's faces 'cause there was no such thing as post-production colors in those days.

What went in the cam is what you had.

I'd previously discovered how to do that by accident.

(funky music) Every single effect on "Ashes to Ashes" was done live in the camera.

There was nothing done afterwards simply because you couldn't do anything afterwards.

(David Bowie) ♪ My mama said to get things done ♪ I mean, if you look at it, in some ways, these days, it's incredibly simple but still amazing.

I still think it stands the test of time.

I think a video that influenced me an incredible amount, I would say.

(David Bowie) ♪ My mama said to get things done ♪♪ ♪ We felt something about the video, but I don't think we were aware then that it was gonna be as huge as it did become.

The thing that actually kick-started the video era was the emergence of MTV.

Everybody had to get involved in it, you know?

Even the people that were dragged into it kicking and screaming.

♪ I heard you on my wireless back in '52 ♪ ♪ Lying awake, intent at tuning in on you ♪ ♪ If I was young, it didn't stop you coming through ♪ ♪ Oh, oh ♪ (upbeat music) (Russell Mulcahy) When we did "Video Killed the Radio Star," it was like a regular shoot.

We had these crazy ideas, and it was done for fun more than anything.

It opened up MTV.

It was the first video they showed.

And no one realized the impact that this video would have.

(The Buggles) ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ (Trevor) I suppose "Video Killed the Radio Star" was a sort of natural song for MTV because of the lyric, but when I wrote the lyric, I wasn't really thinking about MTV.

I was just thinking about technology and how it was moving so quickly, and you could feel it coming, something was coming, you know, like the song from the musical, "Just Around the Corner."

It felt like that in sort of 1978, '79.

-♪ Oh, oh ♪ -♪ You were the last one ♪ (Trevor) We had no idea what we were gonna do, and all we had was a couple of silver suits, and I had a great big pair of blue glasses, and quite honestly, I didn't care.

I just remember the girl in the tube.

What a strange thing to be in a tube where you could barely move and how dangerous it actually was because the tube sort of went over at one point and she couldn't stop herself from falling over.

And she sort of flies off the top of all of the TV sets.

They had about ten of those guys there to catch her.

They didn't have somebody up top with proper controls.

She was just on a wire, and she just jumped.

It was a day of mayhem.

(Russell) She couldn't walk for four days after that, being strung up on that wire and being lowered up and down for like 14 hours.

(The Buggles) ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ (Russell) That video was a long time ago, and it's a wonderful track, and Trevor did a wonderful job, and, uh, I'm proud of it.

(The Buggles) ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ (Trevor) I mean, I've done lots of other records and they're forgotten, but this one's remembered.

Good.

You don't get many of those in life.

(The Buggles) ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪♪ There are videos that, if you know the history of them, that certainly are seminal, and one of them has to be Ultravox's "Vienna."

(dark synth-pop music) ♪ (Russell) I wanted my videos to try to tell a little story.

I wanted it to have a very sort of noirish mystery about it.

So a number of locations in London were used.

The interior of the Opera House, the exterior marketplace of Covent Garden mimicking Vienna.

(Ultravox) ♪ The feeling has gone, only you and I ♪ ♪ It means nothing to me ♪ ♪ ♪ This means nothing to me ♪ ♪ Oh, Vienna ♪ (Gary) I watched Ultravox's "Vienna," like we all did, and we suddenly saw a film on screen.

♪ It sort of changed the landscape of what was possible for a band to do.

You didn't actually have to play your instruments on screen, that you could be an actor within this.

♪ (Russell) I'm from Australia.

I grew up on a beach.

And Australia was down there, and then there was the rest of the world, and so, all of a sudden I was put into England and I was given this cassette called "Vienna," I put it on, I listened to it, I came up with these ideas.

I come back to London and I said to the band, "I got this great idea.

When you're going down the canals in the gondolas..." And they went, "That's Venice."

I went, "Oh, right.

Um..." So there was a quick change of concept.

♪ Julien Temple, another video director of the time, he came on to do the "Vienna" video.

He was a little drunk, and, um, I stuck a tarantula on his face.

(laughing) And that sort of killed our friendship.

For weeks later, he told me, he still felt that thing crawling across his face, and, um, he never forgave me for that.

(Ultravox) ♪ This means nothing to me ♪ ♪ Oh, Vienna ♪♪ ♪ (bright energetic music) ♪ (Nick Rhodes) The "Rio" video was actually accidental.

-Yeah.

-Four of us were on holiday in Antigua, I think we'd finished working in America.

We get a call from the management saying, "No, no, no, don't come back to the UK.

Stay there.

We're bringing a film crew.

We need a video."

(Duran Duran) ♪ Moving on the floor now, babe ♪ ♪ You're a bird of paradise ♪ Rio was definitely influenced by a number of photographic magazines.

I just wanted some bright plastics and pinks and blues, and I just wanted that contrast of color.

And I think the split screens really came around quite seriously, came around through the desperation of editing because we really didn't have enough footage.

And actually, when I left the island, I said, "Oh, ..., I don't think we've got a video."

♪ Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand ♪ ♪ Just like that river twisting through a dusty land ♪ (Nick) This film crew arrive and they're just finding out what's there.

"Oh, boat, right, we need a boat.

Let's get this, let's, oh, stick someone on top of a mountain.

Uh, what are we gonna do with the sax solo?"

(Duran Duran) ♪ ...across the Rio Grande ♪ There's even a shot of John Taylor with a saxophone, which is footage from a German tourist.

I borrowed his camera, took it to England, then sent him, the German, his film back.

I mean, that's how desperate it was.

The crew had gone home.

(saxophone solo) (Simon Le Bon) Nick and John, they both fancied themselves as the sax players in the band, which is why you've got both of them doing it-- (Nick) Yeah, I definitely got the raw end of the stick.

(Simon) No, I think what I like about it, actually, is they're so different.

You've got John kind of giving it all the chest on top of Shirley Heights with the view down the harbor, and then you've got you sort of wobbling around-- -Trying to keep my balance.

-...on this, um, on this raft, and it looked really-- I thought it was really interesting.

To me, that's one of the best parts of the whole video, actually.

♪ Alive, alive ♪ ♪ I'll take my chance 'cause luck is on my side ♪ (Nick) For me, the thing that stands up about the "Rio" video more than anything else is the humor in it.

I mean, it's ridiculous and slapstick, but it-- it sort of worked with the energy of the song.

♪ Her name is Rio, she don't need to understand ♪ ♪ And I might find her if I'm looking like I can ♪ (David Mallet) The joys of making a music video in that era was that you just did it.

There was no commissioning editor, there was no one you had to explain it to, there's no one you had to write the idea down to, and no focus group that would then have a meeting about the idea.

You just turned up and did it.

(upbeat music) (Russell) There was a period in the '80s when we made those videos where there was a freedom.

-And that freedom was like-- -A visual freedom.

-And creative freedom.

-I don't think the record companies knew what the ... we were doing.

(Wayne Isham) And there's-- even if you didn't know, you still did it with a sincere, "I'm going to make it happen."

Not like, "I'm just gonna go crazy."

-"I'm gonna make that happen."

-Yeah.

(upbeat music) ♪ I don't know how "I'm Still Standing" actually got made.

(Elton John) ♪ You could never know what it's like ♪ ♪ Your blood, like winter, freezes just like ice ♪ ♪ And there's a cold, lonely light that shines from you ♪ ♪ You'll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use ♪ (Russell) They were sent to France, and then when we got there, nothing had been organized, and it was like, "Elton's here, oh God."

So then Elton's then going, "Okay, what are we shooting?"

"I have no idea what we're doing."

(Elton John) ♪ Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did?

♪ (Russell) I said, "Okay, look, give me the camera," and I'm doing this handheld, walking back on the pier, and he's coming towards me singing.

And of course, I slip and fall in with the camera.

I remember surfacing and seeing the camera assistant dive in, not for me... (laughing) ...'cause I was sinking, but coming up, "I've got the camera!"

And I'm trying to slide up this post which is covered in moss, and sliding back underwater.

Eventually dragged me through the hotel lobby looking like a wet rat.

Elton sort of got the idea that there was a problem.

♪ I'm still standing better than I ever did ♪ ♪ Looking like a true survivor ♪ ♪ Feeling like a little kid ♪ ♪ After I dried off, then managed to find another camera, we sat around and said, "Okay, you know what, why don't we all just go down tomorrow morning and just film," and had fun.

But it was all invented on the spot.

(singers) ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ (Russell) At that point, I realized you can just be creative on the spot if you need to be, or if you have to be.

(singers) ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ -♪ I'm still standing ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm still standing ♪♪ (dark dramatic music) ♪ (David Mallet) Frankly, we were stuck for ideas for "Break Free."

We just couldn't get it worked out, and Roger arrived late, having been stuck in traffic, to this meeting, and Roger walked straight in and said, "I know what we've got to do.

The Stones have done it, now we're gonna do it.

We're gonna do it in drag."

(bright music) And at that minute, the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw this little 1950s house, and Brian May being woken up by a teasmade, and John being a grumpy granny, and Roger being a naughty schoolgirl, et cetera, et cetera, and then I thought, "What character to make Fred?"

And I thought Liverpudlian .... is the answer.

♪ I want to break free ♪ (mellow music) ♪ I want to break free ♪ ♪ ♪ I want to break free from your lies ♪ ♪ You're so self-satisfied ♪ ♪ I don't need you ♪ (David) Then Fred got all tiddly-pom about what he's going to wear and how short the skirt should be, and then he said, "Of course, I'm gonna shave off my mustache, darling."

And I said, "No, the one thing you mustn't do.

The funny thing is that your mustache is there and you're in drag."

And to this day, when he comes around the corner with that Hoover, to this day I laugh.

(Roger) Yeah.

But of course, then there's the middle section, which is quite funny, where he insisted on getting the whole of the Royal Ballet in, for which he did shave his mustache.

♪ (David) I remember there was a cupboard under the stairs, and Fred and I, for some reason, it was a quick way to the back of the set.

It just a fake cupboard-- not a cupboard, a door under the stairs, and for some reason, we'd been talking about something, we came out through that door onto the set, and somebody called out, "It's about time you came out of the closet, David!"

(laughter) ♪ Hey, God knows ♪ ♪ ♪ Got to make it on my own ♪ (Roger) It was the most fun of any video we ever made, definitely.

(David) I laughed for three days straight making that, and at the end of the three days, my ribs were hurting 'cause I'd been laughing nonstop.

We all were, we were hysterical.

(Roger) Yeah, it was just one long laugh, actually.

It was great, and it was a measure of, um, the sort of thinking at MTV that they--they thought it was disgraceful and didn't show it and banned it.

(Queen) ♪ ...break free ♪♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ (Steve Barron) I was in London, and I got the call saying, "In two weeks time, wanna do a Michael Jackson video?"

The brief was, he really was looking for something magical.

(Michael Jackson) ♪ She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene ♪ ♪ I said don't mind, but what do you mean, I am the one ♪ (Steve) And I'd done an idea about a year earlier about the Midas touch and about everything lighting up in real magic.

I wrote down a treatment which was about walking down the street and some sort of private detective.

(Michael Jackson) ♪ Billie Jean is not my lover ♪ (Steve) I sat down with the manager first, and the manager said, "We really like the idea.

Just give him a chorus to do some d-- He's been practicing some dances in front of the mirror."

(Michael Jackson) Woo!

♪ She says I am the one ♪ (Steve) And what I'd planned for him in terms of walking on the street and the dances and things was that all the paving stones would be interactive.

So, pressure interactive, so he'd step on one and a light would come on.

Of course, you know, the budget, the art director couldn't deliver.

On the day, I had to take Michael through what worked and what didn't, and I said, "Unfortunately, we've only got 11 of these stones that light up."

And I said, "This is one, those two, and then you gotta skip that one."

And he said, "No, let's just do it."

The chorus came up, and then he started.

♪ For forty days and forty nights ♪ ♪ Law was on her side ♪ ♪ But who can stand when she's in demand ♪ ♪ Her schemes and plans ♪ (Steve) And he moved onto the first stone, and then he moved onto his toes, and then he spun around, and I was pretty gobsmacked by what I was seeing.

The eyepiece literally steamed up, but I saw enough to see that this was something phenomenal.

♪ ...we'd dance till three, then she looked at me ♪ (Steve) The record company seemed very pleased with it, and then we heard that MTV wouldn't play it because he was Black.

There was a very difficult three or four weeks' negotiation with the head of CBS who was really gonna go to the Supreme Court and get MTV to reverse this decision.

When you look at it now, it's just ludicrous, but--but it really was three or four weeks of, "No, we're not playing that," because of the color of his skin.

♪ Billie Jean is not my lover ♪ ♪ She's just a girl who claims that I am the one ♪ ♪ But the kid is not my son ♪ ♪ No, no, she says I am the one ♪ (Wayne) I picked up the tiger ..., and to pick up the tiger ... from that video as a PA and then direct a Michael Jackson video later, I said, I go, "Michael, we worked together before," and he goes, "Really?

When?

I don't remember."

I go, "Michael, we worked together.

I'm the one who picked up the tiger ..." "Oh, Wayne, you're silly."

I--that's-- Okay, was that a bad impression?

Sorry.

♪ (Michael) ♪ Billie Jean is not my lover ♪ ♪ Don't, Billie Jean ♪ ♪ Billie Jean is not my lover ♪♪ (hip-hop music) ♪ I didn't know anything about music videos, which were pretty new in those days anyway, but nobody had done anything quite like what they did with "Rockit."

(synthesizer riff) ♪ They had just gone to an art gallery, and it was a showing of kinetic art.

And I said, "This would be kinda cool for 'Rockit.'"

♪ (Kevin Godley) I saw an artist called Jim Whiting who made these extraordinary pneumatic robots.

A few weeks later, we got this track from Herbie Hancock, and it was a natural pairing.

That sounded like this looked.

(Herbie) I didn't know what the robots looked like or what they had in mind, but it sounded physically interesting.

I said, "You guys are doing the video, go ahead."

(laughing) (hip-hop scratching) ♪ It absolutely helped that Kevin and Lol were musicians because they understood certain musical concepts that they could apply.

One example, they did video scratching.

They actually had to move the reels back and forth the way you'd move a record back and forth.

(scratching) (Kevin) The big question with that video more than anything else, because it was a problem at the time, was getting a Black artist on MTV.

It was a major deal back then.

We put Herbie very simply on a TV monitor amidst the chaos in robot world, and it actually worked extremely well.

♪ (Herbie) They put us on low rotation, and after a week or two, they called up and they said, "We wanna put it on heavy rotation."

It completely bypassed the medium rotation.

♪ We had the most MTV awards that year, the year of the first MTV Awards.

Nobody won four, and Michael Jackson won three.

Michael Jackson did "Thriller" around that time, but that was a huge production.

This was not a huge production.

It gave me a great deal of encouragement to really continue to find a way to have innovative videos for the future.

♪ (mellow music) ♪ ♪ You don't know how to ease my pain ♪ ♪ You don't know ♪ In a situation like "Cry," we didn't wanna be in it at all, and the initial idea was to get Torvill and Dean to skate to it, but they weren't available, so we had to come up with something else.

♪ It's the sound of my tears falling ♪ (Kevin) We just felt it was the kind of song that anyone could sing, and it turned out to be correct.

We're just in there with everybody else.

We were looking for interesting faces.

At that stage of the game, we had no idea how we were gonna make 'em work together or that we'd get the effect that we did.

(Godley & Creme) ♪ Make me wanna cry ♪ ♪ (Kevin) When we came to edit "Cry," we just had a bunch of faces singing, and we were sort of mixing between the two, and that was fine, and then something different happens.

It's called a soft wipe, and it allows you to get from one face to another using a shape that opens up, and what happens is it reveals a part of the incoming face over the top of the outgoing face, so a nose of somebody else might arrive over a face of somebody else, and that was the point that changed the spirit of the edit.

On the way from face A to face B, there was face A and a half which didn't really exist, but it did briefly.

That was the magic, and I should stress, it wasn't morphing.

These were just straight, you know, broadcasting bits of old technology.

I think it was just because we were using faces that it looked magical, for some reason.

(vocalizing) ♪ (upbeat rock music) ♪ (narrator) Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and director David Mallet delivered this video in one 24-hour session.

The aim?

To premiere the video at Live Aid to an estimated global audience of 400 million.

♪ And the time is right ♪ ♪ For dancing in the street ♪ (David Mallet) "Dancing in the Street" with Jagger and Bowie was very different because they turned up in a recording studio in the afternoon and recorded it, so none of us had ever heard it until they rocked up at dark.

They just gave me the tape, and we literally made something up as we went along.

♪ There'll be music everywhere ♪ (David Mallet) There's one scene which is definitely David's, there's one scene I can look at now which I knew was mine, and there's a whole lot of other scenes which are sheer desperation.

(upbeat music) -♪ Baltimore and D.C. now ♪ -♪ Dancing in the street ♪ (David Mallet) I think the whole British film industry was there.

I think we had about nine feature film critics there.

Everybody turned up for nothing, to do it for a bit of a laugh.

-♪ Back in the USSR ♪ -♪ Dancing in the street ♪ -♪ Don't matter where you are ♪ -♪ Dancing in the street ♪ ♪ All we need is music ♪ (David Mallet) We finished filming at about 5:00 in the morning.

In fact, the very last shot, you can see lots of cars in the distance with their headlights on, and that is because it was actually getting light, and to give the impression that it was a bit darker, I had to stick all these cars out there facing us with the headlights on full beam.

And then I took it away, had a couple hours' sleep, and I think I'd finished editing it by 7:00 that night.

♪ Every guy grab a girl ♪ ♪ Everywhere around the world ♪ ♪ There'll be dancing ♪ ♪ They're dancing in the street ♪♪ (new wave music) (Duran Duran) ♪ Wild boys, wild boys ♪ ♪ Wild boys ♪ ♪ ♪ Wild boys ♪ (Nick Rhodes) Well, early on, I think it was actually a lot easier because we had such small budgets that there was no option, you just had to keep moving and get it done.

By the time we got to make "Wild Boys," that was an enormous budget.

We had half of Shepperton, these three massive sound stages and people fiddling around with lights for hours before you could shoot a few frames that were only gonna last for five, ten seconds in the video.

(Simon Le Bon) Something had gone wrong with Russell's film project, which was titled "Wild Boys."

And so all those ideas that he'd had and that whole feeling, the mood of it, the style of it, he was able to express all of that in the video.

♪ Wild boys ♪ ♪ Never lose it ♪ ♪ Wild boys ♪ ♪ Never chose this way ♪ -♪ Wild boys ♪ -♪ Wild boys ♪ (Russell) It was the high theatrics that I love.

I mean, I've always wanted to do that sort of scale.

Things drop and people come out-- fly out of holes, and things are blowing up.

I think the windmill was designed by some lunatic circus guy.

(Duran Duran) ♪ You got sirens for a welcome ♪ (Russell) There was an unfortunate accident on the windmill sequence where the windmill got stuck and he was stuck underwater.

(Simon) As far as I was concerned, this kind of myth evolved that I had nearly drowned, and I can't quite figure out how that would've been.

At no point did I feel frightened.

For many years, I've lived under the idea that they just made it up to make it seem more interesting.

(Russell) There were no safety guys around and so we all jumped in and untied him 'cause he was really strapped in there.

Thank God he's got big lungs.

-♪ Wild boys ♪ -♪ Wild boys ♪ (Simon) I don't know, maybe something did happen that I was so stupidly unaware of that actually was dangerous, which is very, very possible 'cause I was often somewhere else in those days, you know?

-♪ Wild boys always ♪ -♪ Wild boys ♪ (Nick) "Wild Boys" video was definitely the pinnacle for us of the over-the-top '80s video.

-♪ Wild boys ♪ -♪ Never close your eyes ♪♪ (door creaking) (upbeat music) (heavy breathing) ♪ I was always trying to make a little bit of trouble with my videos, I think.

So, Robert Smith, the singer of The Cure, was kind of attracted to that idea of me.

So they sent me this song over which had this sort of drum... (mimicking drum) ...going on it, and this heavy breathing, and him sort of wailing across the top about being close to me.

It was a very claustrophobic feeling.

So I then came up with the idea of wanting to shoot it all in this very, very, very confined space and really give the feeling of the song.

♪ ...ever be ♪ ♪ This close to me ♪ (Tim) Here we were, filming in the most confined space, a wardrobe, and the biggest mistake on the day was the food that they ate at lunch 'cause there were a lot of people in there, and they'd had Indian food for lunch, and that was my overriding memory of that day.

So for me, whenever I see that video, there's a certain smellscape that comes with it.

(vocalizing) And me and Robert came up with this idea about this wardrobe going over this cliff.

So we ended up shooting this thing and going down to Beachy Head.

It's not an easy thing to chuck a wardrobe over a cliff.

♪ I remember we had blokes holding it behind, but this sort of massive gale, and then you try and get the bloody thing to go over, it won't go over.

It's probably easier to jump off, actually, but we didn't try that.

♪ What was interesting was, I think that, in a way, the video sort of completed the song.

We did a thing then which is very rare to do these days, we remixed the song for the video.

So I said to him, "I think this is really claustrophobic."

So then what was fantastic was I went back with Robert to the recording studio and we remixed the song to sound even denser, and in a way, I think that's the version of the song he puts out in the end, so in a way, the video had an influence on the actual song itself.

♪ (Nick) A great video definitely helped a song at that point, but if you didn't have a great song, you couldn't-- you could have a fantastic video, and it really wouldn't make a lot of difference.

(Gary Kemp) Some songs really need a video.

Other songs are gonna get heavy rotation on the radio 'cause they just work anyway.

To have both is a dream.

(vibrant music) ♪ (Steve Barron) A-ha had made a pretty low-budget video, very straight, the guy singing in a blue studio, the song had been released, and no radio stations played it, no TV stations showed it.

But Jeff Ayeroff at Warner's said, "No, no, no, this song is great.

This is a great pop song.

I'm not gonna leave it at that."

He said, "We gotta rethink this.

We gotta make a classic video."

(A-ha) ♪ Take on me ♪ (Steve) First thing was, it's gotta have some kind of motivation, otherwise it's just animation for animation's sake, then it doesn't really work.

And then an image just came to mind, it was this person reading a comic book, and his hand reaching out of the comic book, and it gave me goosebumps.

(A-ha) ♪ Take me on ♪ ♪ Take on me ♪ ♪ I'll be gone ♪ ♪ In a day or two ♪ (Magne Furuholmen) There was a staggering amount of post work because all the drawings were done by hand.

I think 14 drawings a second, two and a half minutes, that is quite a few thousand.

And I think that's one of the reasons why it's such a classic is that you sense that work.

There's something in there that just kind of gives it that handmade look that just isn't done today.

♪ But I remember seeing it in its entirety for the first time, and it was a definite feeling that there was something special about it.

(A-ha) ♪ Oh, the things that you say, yeah ♪ ♪ Is it life or just to play my worries away?

♪ (Magne) You have an image of what it's gonna look like, and you know how that sometimes can be quite different than the result.

In this case, the result was exactly as you'd seen it in your mind's eye, and I guess that's a tribute also to Steve's ability to visualize it.

(A-ha) ♪ I'll be gone ♪ -♪ Take on me ♪ -♪ In a day ♪♪ ♪ (mellow music) ♪ (George Michael) ♪ Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body ♪ ♪ I know not everybody has got a body like you ♪ He'd got a lot of credibility already in America.

Wham!

had been bigger than anyone had thought for a teen band.

He was like on the, you know, on the rise like the Madonnas and the Princes.

He was at that moment of his career where all things were pointing towards a huge record, a huge album, and mega stardom.

(George) Yeah, it was a great time, because as well as hitting the nail on the head with the album, with "Faith," there was just a feeling that Andy and I were making really effective pop videos in a time when videos were still shamelessly naive, considering film was an accomplished medium.

I think it's still one of my favorites, actually.

♪ I gotta have faith, faith, faith ♪ (Andy) I mean, he was definitely involved collaboratively, and I'm quite happy with that.

He was one of the artists I was quite comfortable with.

Some artists that want to work collaboratively like that can be a huge pain in the ..., and he was never a pain in the ... .

He always had good ideas.

♪ And another who tied me down to loverboy rules ♪ I was totally involved, really, in just about everything.

The area where I became a real control freak would be the edit room because that was all about me making sure I could live with the shots of me.

(Andy) Yeah, I got pulled out of the edit by the manager who said, "You can't have so many reverse shots of him shaking his ...

."

So I went back in the edit and said to George... "I don't know, do we need--" He said, "No, I think they're funny, they're camp."

He knew what he was doing.

He was, you know, putting it out there a little bit.

(vocalizing) ♪ Well, you know, he tinkers.

He tinkers on the piano, he tinkers on the guitar, but he's not what I would call an instrument-based musician at all, by any stretch of the imagination.

(George) I know it's quite remarkable, the chords are rubbish.

If you look at my hands, I'm sure any guitar player is wetting themselves looking at the shapes I'm making with my hands, but I do it with such conviction and I know how a guitar should feel.

I mean, it is quite amazing.

I would never have the guts to do that now.

(Andy) Probably practiced in front of a mirror, but he was pretty good at it, pretty good at it.

(George) I still thought it was kind of camp in a way, but the Americans, if you stick a guitar on, you've got a bigger ..., it's simple as that, or you have one, you know what I mean?

♪ I gotta have faith, faith, faith ♪♪ (narrator) If bravado was what the MTV audience wanted, well, it's what they got.

Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" led the march of the epic music video as industry execs spotted the link between big budgets and bumper sales.

(rock music) ♪ I love live rock and roll.

I love the experience.

I love just losing your mind to music.

I appreciate a great show, so when the opportunity came up for Bon Jovi, I said, "I know what to do."

And Jon said no.

He hated my guts.

He didn't want me to have anything to do with it.

♪ Tommy used to work on the docks ♪ (Wayne) He wanted somebody else, and his manager, Doc McGhee, said, "This is the guy that's gonna do it."

♪ (Bon Jovi) ♪ So tough ♪ (Wayne) And so we reopened an old, old boxing venue called the Olympic.

Boxing at the Olympic used to be a very famous thing here in California.

♪ She brings home her pay for love ♪ (Wayne) And it was abandoned, it was closed down, and we needed to mock up a live show.

We mocked a live show.

We painted their name.

Everything we did was bigger than life.

We did everything big.

♪ It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not ♪ I didn't like making videos until I met Wayne.

You know, the first day that we got together, him and I just connected completely.

I think it was my birthday, actually, and, um, we didn't sleep much.

We had a lovely time, and we made the number one video that was probably on MTV.

They couldn't kick it off.

I think it was on for like 80 days straight and they had to retire it or something.

♪ We were still a new band at that point, and we were new to each other also.

I think that there was a certain part of the relationship between the bandmates that Wayne captured between Jon and I and between the fun that we were having as the rocket ship to stardom and fame was taking off.

♪ Whoa, we're halfway there ♪ ♪ Whoa, livin' on a prayer ♪ (Wayne) One of my favorite shots in that video is that we did fire-- I love blowing ... up, and I love fireworks, and we had fireworks coming down, and I led the cameraman through, and he had a drape over his head so he wouldn't get burnt, and he walked through the flames, he walked through all the sparks, and I stood there just as the sparks were leaving, then I had to run away.

So it's in the video, the editor put it in, it worked out perfect, but it is one of those funny moments in a video when you see how I'm just so enamored with the filmmaking process, I just sat there like, "Wow, this is cool," and I ruined the shot.

♪ You live for the fight when that's all that you've got ♪ ♪ Whoa, we're halfway there ♪ (Richie) At that particular point in time, and I'm trying to be humble now, but at that particular point in time, we were on the eve of becoming the biggest band in the world that--that day.

That day, you know?

And Wayne was capturing... that amazing moment.

♪ Whoa, livin' on a prayer ♪♪ (Wayne) And it was a huge success for everybody.

It led--they had never sold a million records before, and then after that, it was awesome.

It was a huge success for me because it confirmed what I believe in, which I believe in... cameras, fun, music, and you go for it.

(wind howling, rain pouring) (thunder rumbling) (soft orchestral music) (applause, cheering) ♪ (Matt Sorum) The concept of the video is really Axl's baby.

I was involved pretty much in what was gonna be on the rider, you know, alcohol-wise usually.

(laughing) To make sure that we had plenty to get us through those grueling 18-hour video sessions.

♪ The live shot in the theater with the orchestra and everything, that was quite a big production.

We shot that for a couple days, I think.

We were really plugged in and we were really playing.

We weren't guys that were into miming ...

It drove the crew crazy 'cause none of them could ... hear what they were doing or talk to each other 'cause we'd be like... (mimicking guitar) ♪ (Andy) There were rats that went running out of the theater because they'd never heard a sound so loud, and Slash instructed his roadies to try and catch one for his snake.

♪ The wedding was shot kinda-- it was kinda weird, it was kind of out of sequence.

You know, Stephanie Seymour looked gorgeous.

When the priest says, "You may now kiss," they went into this, like, long, full-tongue clinch which, you know, we just shot.

And everyone looked up at each other and went, "... ...!

Did that just happen?"

(Guns N' Roses) ♪ When even friends seem out to harm you ♪ ♪ So the big solo was actually shot in New Mexico 'cause we were looking for a little white church that he could walk out of, and shot, you know, what is probably one of the most iconic, you know, rock hero solos ever.

(guitar solo) ♪ (Matt) We would usually get to the set around sundown, then we could shoot through the next morning.

Sometimes, you know, we'd go straight through.

(Andy) We shot the big reception scene, which was a daylight scene.

Now I had to keep them up all night to do a daylight scene 'cause they literally were like vampires.

You know, you could get 'em between the hours of like 6:00 in the evening to 6:00 in the morning, but if you ever wanted to do a daylight shot, you had to keep 'em up.

(Guns N' Roses) ♪ Don't you think that you need somebody?

♪ (Andy) The funeral, I had four rain machines and 200 extras and a cortège of 17 cars and the biggest kind of, you know, Godfather-type funeral I could try and shoot, and I had closed down half of LA Cemetery.

(Matt) I remember at the time shooting, thinking, "Wow, this is-- this is crazy," and I remember the budgets being astronomical.

(Andy) I mean, at that point, I wasn't sure what story we were telling at all, but it all just seemed like great fun to do, and, you know, I'd say, "Let's walk out of a big church into a small church in the middle of nowhere," and everyone's going, "Yeah, great."

It was like Spinal Tap with money, basically.

(soft music, rain pouring) (The Buggles) ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ (narrator) Throughout the '80s, directors, producers, and artists catapulted a new medium from joyful creative experiment to a global visual language.

The vibrancy of these iconic images has never been matched since and remains as the golden decade of visual style.

These were the music videos that shaped the '80s.

(The Buggles) ♪ And you remember the jingles used to go ♪ (Kevin Godley) Initially, music video was about innovation and creating something that hadn't been seen before, and then it became more sophisticated.

The technology improved, so everything began to look better.

And I think by then, it was an obviously successful marketing tool.

So marketing people became involved, and I think that's where it turned to ... ♪ We've gone too far ♪ (Bob Geldof) It was a bolt-on, then it became the essential, which gave rise to an industry, and then it became redundant.

Now, the technology is allowing people to be creative for very little money, but guys out there doing it or girls out there doing it, do something good, you know, be creative, you know?

It's truly, what everybody has to understand, the excitement of what we did then is what has to be reignited about the excitement that it is now still.

Music picture is exciting.

(Tim Pope) Like punk came along and revolutionized music, something will come along at some point which revolutionizes videos again.

That inevitably will happen.

♪ Put the blame on VCR ♪♪ (bright music)