Dire Straits — Money For Nothing music video (Good quality, all countries)

JUL 01 1985 · 12:00

Dire Straits — Money For Nothing music video (Good quality, all countries) (1985) Director: Steve Barron Era: MTV Golden Age (1985) - Peak of early music video as a mainstream art form; the year MTV's influence over rock stardom reached its apex, coinciding with the Live Aid moment and the CD/digital audio boom. Tier 1 essential archive artifact. 'Money for Nothing' is among a tiny handful of music videos that are simultaneously a technological milestone, a commercial landmark, a cultural critique of their own medium, and a period document of peak MTV-era rock. Its hybrid CGI/live-action format, self-aware lyrical content, VMA sweep, and role as the inaugural broadcast on MTV Europe make it indispensable for any serious music video archive. Context: Released in June 1985 at the height of MTV's cultural dominance, 'Money for Nothing' is one of the most self-aware artifacts of the music video era — a song written from the perspective of working-class men bewildered by MTV's celebrity economy, delivered via one of the most technically ambitious videos the channel had ever aired. The video's pioneering CGI was created using a Bosch FGS-4000 system and Quantel Paintbox by animators Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair, who would later found Mainframe Entertainment. The video was the first broadcast on MTV Europe at its 1987 launch, cementing its totemic status. It won the Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and swept the VMAs, and its success helped drive Brothers in Arms to over 30 million copies sold worldwide. Director notes: Barron was approached by Warner Brothers executive Jeff Ayeroff and flew to Budapest to pitch the video concept to Dire Straits while they were on tour. Mark Knopfler was notably resistant to making music videos. The CGI animation was created by Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair using a Bosch FGS-4000 CGI system and a Quantel Paintbox system at CAL Videographics in London. Pearson reportedly spent three and a half weeks living in the studio to finish the animation by deadline. Live-action concert footage shot in Budapest was digitally painted over using animated pixels. The video also features embedded fictional and real music videos as diegetic content on in-world television screens, including a clip from Hungarian pop band Első Emelet and a fictional video credited to the 'Ian Pearson Band.' The video received 11 VMA nominations and won Video of the Year and Best Group Video at the 1986 ceremony.