video essay vs review

Visual Rhetoric

Video essay resource guide.

PAR 102 (M-Th, 9 AM- 5 PM) Fine Arts Library Media Lab (same hours as FAL) PCL Media Lab (same hours as PCL)

About video essays

What are they.

“The video essay is often described as a form of new media, but the basic principles are as old as rhetoric: the author makes an assertion, then presents evidence to back up his claim. Of course it was always possible for film critics to do this in print, and they’ve been doing it for over 100 years, following more or less the same template that one would use while writing about any art form: state your thesis or opinion, then back it with examples. In college, I was assured that in its heart, all written criticism was essentially the same – that in terms of rhetorical construction, book reviews, music reviews, dance reviews and film reviews were cut from the same cloth, but tailored to suit the specific properties of the medium being described, with greater emphasis given to form or content depending on the author’s goals and the reader’s presumed interest.”

Matt Zoller Seitz on the video essay .

what makes a good video essay? 

Tony Zhou on how to structure a video essay

Kevin B. Lee on what makes a video essay “ great “

why should we use them? what are their limits?

Kevin B. Lee’s  experimental/artistic pitch for video essays

Kevin B. Lee’s mainstream pitch for video essay

“Of all the many developments in the short history of film criticism and scholarship, the video essay has the greatest potential to challenge the now historically located text-based dominance of the appraisal and interpretation of film and its contextual cultures…”

Andrew McWhirter argues that t he video essay has significant academic potential in the Fall 2015 issue of  Screen

“Importantly, the [new] media stylo does not replace traditional scholarship. This is a new practice beyond traditional scholarship. So how does critical media differ from traditional scholarship and what advantages does it offer? First, as you will see with the works in this issue, critical media demonstrates a shift in rhetorical mode. The traditional essay is argumentative-thesis, evidence, conclusion. Traditional scholarship aspires to exhaustion, to be the definitive, end-all-be-all, last word on a particular subject. The media stylo, by contrast, suggests possibilities-it is not the end of scholarly inquiry; it is the beginning. It explores and experiments and is designed just as much to inspire as to convince…”

Eric Fadden’s “ A Manifesto for Critical Media “

Adam Westbrook’s “ The Web-Video Problem: Why It’s Time to Rethinking Visual Storytelling from the Bottom Up “

Video essayists and venues

Matt Zoller Seitz (various venues) A writer and director by trade, Zoller Seitz is nonetheless probably best known as a prominent American cultural critic.  He’s made over 1000 hours of video essays and is generally recognized as a founder of the video essay movement in high-brow periodicals.  A recognized expert on Wes Anderson, Zoller Seitz is also notable because he often mixes other cinematic media (especially television) into his analysis, as in the above example, which doubles as an experiment in the absence of voiceover.

Various contributors, Press Play Co-founded by Matt Zoller Seitz and Ken Cancelosi,  Press Play  (published by Indiewire)   is one of the oldest high-brow venues for video essays about television, cinema, and other aspects of popular culture.

Various contributors, Keyframe   (A Fandor online publication) Fandor’s video essay department publishes work from many editors (what many video essayists call themselves) on and in a range of topics and styles.  Check it out to get an idea of all that things a video essay can do!

Various contributors, Moving Image Source A high-brow publication for video essays.

Tony Zhou, Every Frame a Painting The master of video essays on filmic form, Tony’s arguments are clean, simple, and well-evidenced.  Look to Tony as an example of aggressive and precise editing and arrangement.  He’s also an excellent sound editor–pay attention to his choices and try out some of his sound-mixing techniques in your essay.

Adam Johnston, Your Movie Sucks (YMS) Although an excellent example of epideictic film rhetoric, this channel is a great example of what  not  to do in this assignment (write a movie review, gush about how good/bad you think a movie is, focus on motifs or narrative content instead of  film form  as the center of your argument).  What you  can  learn from Adam is a lot about style.  Adam’s delivery, pacing, and editing all work together to promote a mildly-disinterested-and-therefore-credible ethos through a near-monotone, which I’ll affectionately dub the “Daria” narratorial ethos.

Adam Westbrook, delve.tv Adam Westbrook is part of an emerging group of professional video essayists and delve.tv is his version of a visual podcast.  Using the video essay form, Adam has developed a professional public intellectual ethos for himself through skillful overlay of explanation/interpretation and concept.  Check out Westbrook’s work as a really good example of presenting and representing visual concepts crucial to an argument.  He’s a master at making an argument in the form of storytelling, and he uses the video essay as a vehicle for that enterprise.

:: kogonada (various venues) If you found yourself wondering what the auteur video essay might look like, :: kogonada is it.  I like to call this “expressionist” video essay style.  Kogonada is the ultimate minimalist when it comes to voiceover/text over–its message impossibly and almost excessively efficient.  Half of the videos in his library are simple, expertly-executed supercuts , highlighting how heavily video essays rely on the “supercut” technique to make an argument.  Crafting an essay in this style really limits your audience and may not be a very good fit for the constraints of assignment (very “cutting edge,” as we talked about it in class), but you will probably draw inspiration from ::kogonada’s distinct, recognizable style, as well as an idea of what a video essay can do at the outer limits of its form.

Lewis Bond,  Channel Criswell Narrating in brogue-y Northern English, Bond takes his time, releasing a very carefully-edited, high-production video essay once every couple of months.  He’s a decent editor, but I feel his essays tend to run long, and I feel rushed by his narration at times.  Bond also makes a useful distinction between video essays and analysis/reviews on his channel–and while most of his analysis/reviews focus on film content (what you don’t want to imitate), his video essays stay pretty focused on film technique (what you do).  Hearing the same author consciously engage in two different modes of analysis might help you better understand the distinction between the two, as well.

Jack Nugent,  Now You See It Nugent’s brisk, formal analysis is both insightful and accessible–a good example of what it takes to secure a significant following in the highly-competitive Youtube marketplace.  [That’s my way of slyly calling him commercial.] Nugent is especially good at pairing his narration with his images.  Concentrate and reflect upon his simple pairings as you watch–how does Nugent help you process both sets of information at the pacing he sets?

Evan Puschak, The Nerdwriter Nerdwriter  is a great example the diversity of topics a video essay can be used to craft an argument about.  Every week, Puschak publishes an episode on science, art, and culture.  Look at all the different things Puschak considers visual rhetoric and think about how he’s using the video essay form to make honed, precisely-executed arguments about popular culture.

Dennis Hartwig and John P. Hess,  FilmmakerIQ Hartwig and Hess use video essays to explain filmmaking technique to aspiring filmmakers.  I’ve included the channel here as another example of what  not  to do in your argument, although perhaps some of the technical explanations that Hartwig and Hess have produced might help you as secondary sources.  Your target audience (someone familiar on basic film theory trying to better understand film form) is likely to find the highly technical, prescriptive arguments on FilmIQ boring or alienating. Don’t focus on technical production in your essay (how the film accomplishes a particular visual technique using a camera); rather, focus on how the audience interprets the end result in the film itself; in other words, focus on choices the audience can notice and interpret–how is the audience interpreting the product of production?  How often is the audience thinking about/noticing production in that process?

Kevin B. Lee (various venues) A good example of the older, high-brow generation of video essayists, Kevin’s collection of work hosted on his Vimeo channel offers slow, deliberate, lecture-inspired readings of film techniques and form.  Note the distinct stylistic difference between Kevin’s pacing and someone like Zhou or Lewis.  How does delivery affect reception?

Software Guides

How to access Lynda tutorials (these will change your life)

Handbrake and MakeMKV  (file converters)

Adobe Premiere  (video editing)

Camtasia  (screen capture)

File management

Use your free UTBox account to upload and manage your files.  Make sure you’ve got some sort of system for tracking and assembling everything into your video editing software.   UTBox has a 2 terabyte limit (much higher than Google Drive) and is an excellent file management resource for all sorts of academic work.

Adobe Premiere saves versions with links to your video files, so it’s imperative that you keep your video files folder in the same place on every machine you open it up on.  That’s why I keep all my video files in a big folder on box that I drop on the desktop of any machine I’m working on before I open my premiere files.  The Adobe Premiere project walkthrough  has more details on this.

Where to find video and how to capture it

About fair use . Make sure your composition complies with the Fair Use doctrine and familiarize yourself with the four criteria.

The best place to capture images is always from a high-resolution DVD or video file .  The first place you should go to get the film is the library– see instructions for searching here .

To import the video and audio from your DVD or video file into your video editing software (like Premiere), you will first need to use a software to convert it to an .mkv.  See instructions on how to do that here .

Camtasia tutorials .  Camtasia is a program that allows you to capture anything that’s going on on your screen .  This is a critical tool for this assignment as you decide what kind of interface you want to present to your reader in your video essay.  Camtasia also allows you to capture any high-quality video playing on your desktop without licensing restrictions.

You can also use Clip Converter to capture images and sound from pre-existing YouTube videos , and it may be a little faster and easier than Camtasia.   I suggest converting things into .mkv before putting them into your video editor, regardless of where you get the material from.

Film theory and criticism

• /r/truefilm’s reading and viewing guide

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The Video Essay

The Video Essay as a Tool for Teaching and Learning

Jorrit de jong and cecily tyler ash center for democratic governance and innovation, harvard kennedy school.

Copyright © 2019 Jorrit de Jong and Cecily Tyler All rights reserved

What is a Video Essay? A video essay is a short documentary film of about 5 to 15 minutes. It is a visual equivalent of the traditional written research paper that students write to present research. It comes with a slide deck that contains the underlying research design, the findings, references to the relevant academic literature, conclusions and recommendations and/or suggestions for future research. The video essay itself presents the inquiry that the student has done in a way that leverages the comparative advantages of a visual medium: it allows students to show rather than tell, to construct a narrative that both integrates the various data and interpretations and is more appealing. The video essay brings together voices and images from the community or natural environment that is the subject of inquiry. Filmmaking as a form of field-based inquiry is of course not new, but it is rarely used in public policy schools in a systematic way. We ran a pilot to discover how the video essay might be leveraged as a tool for teaching and learning. We learned from the results and created materials to share these lessons with educators. The results of our pilot are four examples of video essays, a structure for designing a video essay project (research plus film), a rubric for evaluating a video essay, samples of syllabi, tutorials, and an overview with types of support for students. Why use the video essay as a learning tool? The act of filming creates new levels of engagement and helps students to develop stronger skills in inquiry and in communicating the findings. The process of film editing forces students to reflect thoroughly on what they have learned, and on how to present the findings in a way that does justice to the people or community that were the subject of research and appeals to and informs or educates a larger audience. This requires deep integration of the literature review, the data obtained from regular quantitative and qualitative analysis, and data obtained through direct interaction with members of the community through interviews and observation. These multiple new forms of analysis and reporting can lead to a much higher level of engagement with the subject, and with the methods of data collection, analysis and interpretation of results. The more visually appealing product of the video essay can be used in further engagement activities with the community that has been portrayed, which can lead to a further discovery and learning. How does a video essay project work? Students take about a year to create the documentary through site visits and group study to present their research. Students gain familiarity on the site and subject of their research and explore and define the problem in interaction with the community. Prior to filming, students formulate research questions, and design the research strategy under faculty supervision. Students need to be trained and supported in conducting research in social science or humanities as well as in filming, storytelling and editing. Students also need to fully grasp the community engagement aspects of using video in the field and hone their methods, skills and ethics of giving a voice to the community through film and by conducting successful interviews. Having media literacy and learning technical skills such as video editing and handling production equipment are critical to the completion of the project.

• Scriptwriting

What is a Video Essay? The Art of the Video Analysis Essay

I n the era of the internet and Youtube, the video essay has become an increasingly popular means of expressing ideas and concepts. However, there is a bit of an enigma behind the construction of the video essay largely due to the vagueness of the term.

What defines a video analysis essay? What is a video essay supposed to be about? In this article, we’ll take a look at the foundation of these videos and the various ways writers and editors use them creatively. Let’s dive in.

Watch: Our Best Film Video Essays of the Year

Subscribe for more filmmaking videos like this.

What is a video essay?

First, let’s define video essay.

There is narrative film, documentary film, short films, and then there is the video essay. What is its role within the realm of visual media? Let’s begin with the video essay definition. 

VIDEO ESSAY DEFINITION

A video essay is a video that analyzes a specific topic, theme, person or thesis. Because video essays are a rather new form, they can be difficult to define, but recognizable nonetheless. To put it simply, they are essays in video form that aim to persuade, educate, or critique. 

These essays have become increasingly popular within the era of Youtube and with many creatives writing video essays on topics such as politics, music, film, and pop culture. 

What is a video essay used for?

• To persuade an audience of a thesis
• To educate on a specific subject
• To analyze and/or critique 

What is a video essay based on?

Establish a thesis.

Video analysis essays lack distinguished boundaries since there are countless topics a video essayist can tackle. Most essays, however, begin with a thesis. 

How Christopher Nolan Elevates the Movie Montage  •  Video Analysis Essays

Good essays often have a point to make. This point, or thesis, should be at the heart of every video analysis essay and is what binds the video together. 

Related Posts

• Stanley Kubrick Directing Style Explained →
• A Filmmaker’s Guide to Nolan’s Directing Style →
• How to Write a Voice Over Montage in a Script →

interviews in video essay

Utilize interviews.

A key determinant for the structure of an essay is the source of the ideas. A common source for this are interviews from experts in the field. These interviews can be cut and rearranged to support a thesis. 

Roger Deakins on "Learning to Light"  •  Video Analysis Essays

Utilizing first hand interviews is a great way to utilize ethos into the rhetoric of a video. However, it can be limiting since you are given a limited amount to work with. Voice over scripts, however, can give you the room to say anything. 

How to create the best video essays on Youtube

Write voice over scripts.

Voice over (VO) scripts allow video essayists to write out exactly what they want to say. This is one of the most common ways to structure a video analysis essay since it gives more freedom to the writer. It is also a great technique to use when taking on large topics.

In this video, it would have been difficult to explain every type of camera lens by cutting sound bites from interviews of filmmakers. A voice over script, on the other hand, allowed us to communicate information directly when and where we wanted to.

Ultimate Guide to Camera Lenses  •  Video essay examples

Some of the most famous video essayists like Every Frame a Painting and Nerdwriter1 utilize voice over to capitalize on their strength in writing video analysis essays. However, if you’re more of an editor than a writer, the next type of essay will be more up your alley. 

Video analysis essay without a script

Edit a supercut.

Rather than leaning on interview sound bites or voice over, the supercut video depends more on editing. You might be thinking “What is a video essay without writing?” The beauty of the video essay is that the writing can be done throughout the editing. Supercuts create arguments or themes visually through specific sequences. 

Another one of the great video essay channels, Screen Junkies, put together a supercut of the last decade in cinema. The video could be called a portrait of the last decade in cinema.

2010 - 2019: A Decade In Film  •  Best videos on Youtube

This video is rather general as it visually establishes the theme of art during a general time period. Other essays can be much more specific. 

Critical essays

Video essays are a uniquely effective means of creating an argument. This is especially true in critical essays. This type of video critiques the facets of a specific topic. 

In this video, by one of the best video essay channels, Every Frame a Painting, the topic of the film score is analyzed and critiqued — specifically temp film score.

Every Frame a Painting Marvel Symphonic Universe  •  Essay examples

Of course, not all essays critique the work of artists. Persuasion of an opinion is only one way to use the video form. Another popular use is to educate. 

• The Different Types of Camera Lenses →
• Write and Create Professionally Formatted Screenplays →
• How to Create Unforgettable Film Moments with Music →

Video analysis essay

Visual analysis.

One of the biggest advantages that video analysis essays have over traditional, written essays is the use of visuals. The use of visuals has allowed video essayists to display the subject or work that they are analyzing. It has also allowed them to be more specific with what they are analyzing. Writing video essays entails structuring both words and visuals. 

Take this video on There Will Be Blood for example. In a traditional, written essay, the writer would have had to first explain what occurs in the film then make their analysis and repeat.

This can be extremely inefficient and redundant. By analyzing the scene through a video, the points and lessons are much more clear and efficient. 

There Will Be Blood  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Through these video analysis essays, the scene of a film becomes support for a claim rather than the topic of the essay. 

Dissect an artist

Essays that focus on analysis do not always focus on a work of art. Oftentimes, they focus on the artist themself. In this type of essay, a thesis is typically made about an artist’s style or approach. The work of that artist is then used to support this thesis.

Nerdwriter1, one of the best video essays on Youtube, creates this type to analyze filmmakers, actors, photographers or in this case, iconic painters. 

Caravaggio: Master Of Light  •  Best video essays on YouTube

In the world of film, the artist video analysis essay tends to cover auteur filmmakers. Auteur filmmakers tend to have distinct styles and repetitive techniques that many filmmakers learn from and use in their own work. 

Stanley Kubrick is perhaps the most notable example. In this video, we analyze Kubrick’s best films and the techniques he uses that make so many of us drawn to his films. 

Why We're Obsessed with Stanley Kubrick Movies  •  Video essay examples

Critical essays and analytical essays choose to focus on a piece of work or an artist. Essays that aim to educate, however, draw on various sources to teach technique and the purpose behind those techniques. 

What is a video essay written about?

Historical analysis.

Another popular type of essay is historical analysis. Video analysis essays are a great medium to analyze the history of a specific topic. They are an opportunity for essayists to share their research as well as their opinion on history. 

Our video on aspect ratio , for example, analyzes how aspect ratios began in cinema and how they continue to evolve. We also make and support the claim that the 2:1 aspect ratio is becoming increasingly popular among filmmakers. 

Why More Directors are Switching to 18:9  •  Video analysis essay

Analyzing the work of great artists inherently yields a lesson to be learned. Some essays teach more directly.

• Types of Camera Movements in Film Explained →
• What is Aspect Ratio? A Formula for Framing Success →
• Visualize your scenes with intuitive online shotlist software →

Writing video essays about technique

Teach technique.

Educational essays designed to teach are typically more direct. They tend to be more valuable for those looking to create art rather than solely analyze it.

In this video, we explain every type of camera movement and the storytelling value of each. Educational essays must be based on research, evidence, and facts rather than opinion.

Ultimate Guide to Camera Movement  •  Best video essays on YouTube

As you can see, there are many reasons why the video essay has become an increasingly popular means of communicating information. Its ability to use both sound and picture makes it efficient and effective. It also draws on the language of filmmaking to express ideas through editing. But it also gives writers the creative freedom they love. 

Writing video essays is a new art form that many channels have set high standards for. What is a video essay supposed to be about? That’s up to you. 

Organize Post Production Workflow

The quality of an essay largely depends on the quality of the edit. If editing is not your strong suit, check out our next article. We dive into tips and techniques that will help you organize your Post-Production workflow to edit like a pro. 

Up Next: Post Production →

Showcase your vision with elegant shot lists and storyboards..

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Media Production and Film Studies

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• The Video Essay

So you want to make a video essay...

The video essay: how-to, featured video essays.

• Copyright & Fair Use
• Getting Help

Additional Resources

Academic Journals

• in[Transition] : The first open access, peer-reviewed journal on videographic criticism
• AUDIOVISUALCY: Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies : An online forum for video essays or works of audovisual screen studies that have an analytical, critical, reflexive or scholarly purpose; fully attribute all sources used; are made according to Fair Use principles; are non-commercial in nature.

Video Essay Channels

• Every Frame a Painting  
• Indietrix Film Reviews
• 100 Years of Cinema  
• Channel Criswell  
• Lindsay Ellis

Library Guides

• Tufts University Library: Multimedia Production
• Edith Cowan University Library: The Video Essay
• Pace University Library: Film Criticism

What is a video essay ?

Christian Keathley, a Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College & co-founder of in[Transition], defines video essays as

“short critical essays on a given film or filmmaker, typically read in voice-over by the author and supplemented with carefully chosen and organized film clips”

Video essays have found incresased popularity in recent years on digital content sharing platforms like YouTube & Vimeo. Despite their scholarly-focused and argument-driven nature, video essays have since been associated with (and mistaken for) other popular forms of commentary (e.g. movie commentaries, reaction videos, online fan-edits, etc.) shared on the same platforms. The two do have similarities in their accessibility and utilize the same set of creative tools and texhniques. However, the video essay in its academic form does follow certain conventions (a written critical component from the author, scholarly research, and peer review), as opposed to popular commentaries. 

Video essays as a medium are an important audivisual form of scholarship, particularly in terms of expression, creation, and accessibility. Traditional essays may not always lend themselves to the fullest expression of film and how we interpret/analyze visual images. As students of film and media studies, it is important to both understand the medium from a critical point of view, as well as from a creative point of view. 

• Planning & Preparation
• Gathering Materials & Filming
• Editing & Sharing
• Understanding File Formats

So you've been assigned a video essay for class, or you want to make one on your own...

Where do you start? Like any other form of traditional essay, you will begin by Developing A Topic , whether it's a persuasive argument, a narrative story, or a research question. If you’re telling a story, think about good elements of narrative. If you’re making an argument in your video essay, think about the elements of making an effective argument. If you're drafting a research question, make sure to be specific and answer the following: who?, what?, where?, when?, why?, and how?

For more information about developing a topic or researcj question, please check out the following resources: 

• Pace Library Guide: The Research Process, Step-By-Step
• Pace Library Guide: Getting Started with Research

Once you have a well-developed topic and/or research question, then you can Create an Outline and Write a Script for your video essay. Utilizing your background research, evidence from whichever piece(s) of media you are analyzing/discussing, and your own arguments/interpretations of that media, you can build an outline and write a basic script to refer to when filmming and/or recording your video essay. This script will especially be important if you plan to record a voiceover. 

For more information about how to write a script/create an outline, please check out the following resources: 

• Excelsior Online Writing Lab: Video Essays
• How To Make A Video Essay: Writing   by  Indietrix Film Reviews

Now, you've got your script and you're ready to start gathering materials (scenes, images, audio, etc.) to edit into your video essay.  The best place to capture images is always  from a high-resolution DVD, Blue-ray, or video file. 

There are a couple of different places you can acquire these files. Of course, you can always invest in your own copies of the physical media. This is the best (and most ethical ) way to get high quality images, video, and footage.

Should you wish to do a screen capture, you can use platforms like Camtasia or Clip Converter to record images or footage directly from your screen. These aren't always the most ethical means to record footage, so if you choose to do so, be sure to consult Fair Use Guidelines before doing so. For this process, you will also likely need a DVD Drive, whether external or internal. Having one that can read DVDs and Blu-rays is a plus! Resoruces for how to do these technical processes are included below. 

Before you actually aquire any footage or media for your video essay, it's important to weigh the ethical considerations (i.e. Fair Use & Copyright Law) no matter what the media is or your intention to use it. 

Resources: 

• How To Make A Video Essay: Footage and Voiceover   from  Indietrix Film Reviews  
• How To Make Video Essays:  This video is especially helpful in terms of the technology of filming and recording voiceovers for video essays, less so the other aspects of video essay production. 
• Camtasia: Screen Capture & Recording Tutorials

As for finding stock photos or images to use that are in the Public Domain , check out this well-curated list of public domain image libraries, websites, and archives at the Tufts University Library Multimedia Production Resource Guide . 

Use editing software and experiment with available functionality to enhance and support your argument. Add a voice-over, sound effects, music and other aspects of multimodality. Be sure to include references and credits to all sources used in creating the video essay. 

For more information on editing video essays, please check out the following resources: 

• How to Make a Video Essay: Editing by  Indietrix Film Reviews
• Vimeo: Editing Basics

When creating, saving, uploading, and sharing video essays, it's important to have a basic understanding of digitail file formats, for videos, audio, and images. 

Linked below are some resources (websites, videos, & infographics) to help you learn how to navigate each file format and learn their best uses. It's likely you'll become aware of and proficient at most of this as you move through your Film & Screen Studies coursework, so think of these resources as a brief introduction to the topic and/or as little reminders for you to refer to in the future. 

Books: 

• Portable Moving Images: A Media History of Storage  Formats  by Ricardo Cedeño Montaña
• Images on the Move: Materiality - Networks -  Formats   Editor: Olga Moskatova

Blog Posts: 

• Understanding Video File Formats, Codecs and Containers by Andy Owen at TechSmith
• Video Formats – Meaning, types and everything you should know   by  Akeem Okunola at InEvent
• Image file formats: When to Use Each File Type   by Samual Lundquist at 99Designs

Other Resources: 

• Introduction to Digital Format Preservation, The Library of Congress

Image Credit: WonderShare, "Top 9 Video Formats You May Want to Know In 2023." 

The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism from Ian Garwood on Vimeo .

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Text vs. Context: Understanding the Video Essay Landscape

February 27, 2017 By Jessica McGoff Features

The emergence (and subsequent rapid proliferation) of the video essay has left both film critics and scholars not only grappling with how best to participate in the move towards the audiovisual, but also how to discuss and analyse the form in its own right. Criticism is necessary for any form, especially one still establishing itself, but what is becoming increasingly perceptible in many recent pieces is a failure to keep up with the video essay’s rapidly changing landscape. This is primarily because critiques of the video essay are often lacking institutional context, resorting instead to auteurist modes of analysis first developed in (non-audiovisual) cinema studies. This discursive flaw both illuminates the current shifts in the video essay landscape and also leads me to contend that working towards an institutional analysis will open up insight regarding the versatile capacity of the video essay.

There are two particular aspects of the video essay that are troubling analysis. The first is the way video essays dissolve the boundaries between criticism, scholarship and unfiltered subjectivity. In disrupting easy distinctions between discursive modes, the video essay can act as interpretive evaluation, pedagogical tool or cinephiliac testimony (and these are not mutually exclusive). The second quality concerns the digital landscape in which the video essay was borne and thrives. The predominantly digital space in which video essays are published risks offering an illusion of homogeneity. Historically, these two issues are related: the Internet has made the boundary between criticism and scholarship more nebulous, acting as a bridge between the two camps of critical discourse. The video essay, then, introduces another complicated layer to this relationship.

Thus, actual categorisation of the video essay becomes a complex task. Conor Bateman suggests that there are “11 Ways of Making a Video Essay,” interestingly designating “supplement to the academic form” as one possibility, whilst also acknowledging works that subvert traditional scholarly expectations. Thomas van den Berg and Miklós Kiss set out to propose a formal blueprint for audiovisual scholarship, and their monograph identifies six types of video essay. Another common taxonomy is Christian Keathley’s proposed opposition between the explanatory and the poetic form, a dichotomy of which he invites both scholarly and critical discourse to engage with. 1 Despite this contention of correct categorisation, video essays continue to flourish by criss-crossing categories and consistently pushing beyond rigid classification. As academic and video essayist Ian Garwood reminds us , “audiovisual film studies has come into being as the result of a number of hybrid influences, and hybridity can still be a valuable concept.” Accordingly, video essays become particularly productive in providing an inter-play between and by way of different modes of discourse.

However – I argue that, due to the current state of the Internet landscape, it is not the formal particulars of video essays that need categorizing now, but rather the platforms on which they are published. It is vital to take into account that digital space is not in fact uniform, but imbued with specific industrial and institutional conditions. If video essays are now to be found in the classroom, at film festivals, on social media and in academic publications, then it is crucial to develop a mode of analysis that does not take these contexts for granted. It is becoming an increasingly redundant critique to level that a video essay does not accomplish the full potential of the form if that potential is becoming increasingly plural, unfolding in different directions.

As with some video essay publications, this direction is industrial. Several outlets have capitalised on the video essay’s ability to draw an audience, deliberately commissioning and featuring video essays based on their potential to go “viral.” This has had an impact on creators, having to subsequently create video essays specifically geared to capture a broad audience on social media or to promote a certain aspect of cinema culture. This phenomenon is fairly new, and I have noticed that much criticism, rather than tackling these new preconditions directly, has instead mimicked the way in which cinema studies bypassed dealing with the complications industrial conditions imposed on creative art, by way of auteur theory.

A recent example is provided in an otherwise insightful article by Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López in the Sydney Review of Books . The article intends to identify problematic tendencies in how video essays “audiovisualise” their theses, but an oversight becomes perceptible in their selection of case studies. A video essay of my own was featured, and I do not write in order to respond to their criticism (although my argument would inform a defense) but rather to question the framing of the examples in the article. With no mention of the particular context of each video’s production and publication, the reader is to assume that they share a common institutional framework. This is false: some videos within the article were commissioned pieces, produced for Fandor Keyframe under a set of regulations and with the aim of social media publication, whilst others were produced in a scholarly context and published with accompanying text. With such differing contexts, it becomes illogical to state that certain videos take the form “along a regressive path,” when it is clear that each video does not necessarily belong on the same path, and the implication that there should be a uniform path seems artistically and discursively limiting. The lack of acknowledgement of institutional frameworks obscures the strength of Martin and López’s critique, and further reveals the widening of the video essay landscape. In lieu of contextualization, this article follows a familiar pattern of positioning the video essayist as auteur, implying sole creative freedom.

The video essay is no stranger to the the auteur. The majority of (popular) video essays thrive on perpetuating the concept of auteurship. Like this , this or this . Yet it is apparent that video essayists are often portrayed as auteurs in their own right, which carries implications regarding sole creative ownership and autonomy. For example, the video essays published under the “Every Frame a Painting” YouTube channel are far more likely to be attributed to Tony Zhou than the channel itself. Admittedly, Zhou does state his name in most of his voiceovers, consciously branding the videos. However, the allure of painting Zhou as a solitary creative figure is betrayed by the consistent erasure of his collaborators – see for example the lack of mention of co-writer and co-creator of the channel, Taylor Ramos. As in this article from Filmmaker Magazine.

My own practice as a video essayist has been coloured by differing institutional contexts, having created videos in undergraduate and postgraduate academia, for Fandor Keyframe (before and after their social-media-first strategy) and in collaboration. To take the example of my Andrea Arnold video essay criticised in the aforementioned Sydney Review of Books article – the commissioning of this essay by Fandor Keyframe coincided with a greater drive towards Facebook content. As such, I took the decision not to use voiceover, but rather on-screen text. The video also necessarily became shorter, causing a formal conflict which Bateman cogently observed in his article concerning video essays in the age of social media. Regarding the video he noted, “the restriction of duration runs counter to the contemplative nature of much of Arnold’s filmmaking.” This experience contrasted with academia, wherein I’ve made 10-minute videos with extensive voiceover, and even in my experience in collaboration , wherein I’ve occupied less of an editing role, working beside a video essayist with a practitioner background. Whilst every one of these situations involved constraints and determinants, what is crucial is that each offered different parameters. Context influenced form, every time.

I do not disagree that video essayists merit the artistic connotations of auteurship, but perpetuating the notion risks erasing collaborative efforts and takes for granted the creative considerations, and in some cases restrictions, of differing institutional contexts. Uniform critique results in a reductive analysis of the form. The question should not be how each video achieves the potentials of the form, but how they demonstrate that the form itself is ever dividing along different lines, different audiences and different possibilities. With platforms now monetizing, and more and more video essays geared towards social media platforms, it is now vital to consider how industrial factors will impact video essays themselves. Criticism and analysis of video essays needs now to go beyond positioning essayists as auteurs and presupposing institutional context. Doing so will demonstrate a grasp on the shifting landscape, allow for nuance between and through the lines of academia and scholarship and fully understand the uniqueness of the form in terms of creative and collaborative factors. In considering the video essay’s multitude of contexts, I believe we will open up discussion and knowledge regarding the form’s multitude of potentialities.

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The Video Essay As Art: 11 Ways to Make a Video Essay

Part one in a series of commissioned pieces on video essay form, originally published at Fandor Keyframe.

This feature piece, the first in an ongoing series, was originally published by Fandor Keyframe in May 2016. You can read the other pieces in this series here .

When you think of the video essay, you might imagine someone expressing their love of a movie over a selection of clips, a compilation of a famous director’s signature shots, or a voice that says: “Hi, my name is Tony.” But these are just a few of a remarkable variety of approaches to making videos exploring film and media, a diversity of forms that is continually evolving and expanding. Here’s an attempt to account for some of the more recognizable modes of video essay, with key examples for each.

Supercut . A collection of images or sounds arranged under a category (i.e. Jacob T. Swinney’s wonderful The Dutch Angle ) or used to break down a film to a set of elements (i.e. Zackery Ramos-Taylor’s recent Hearing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Joel Bocko’s The Colors of Daisies ). The supercut is usually very short and lacks text so as to maximize its impact on a visual level. This brevity of form emphasizes a central concept more than a narrative argument. If a supercut has an argument to make, it is typically in the order in which items are sequenced.

Personal Review . This broad category of video essay hinges on a strongly personalized account of a film. Scout Tafoya’s recurring series The Unloved is a prominent example of this, wherein he makes the claim that each film he focuses on is underappreciated and then asserts their qualities through visual analysis. The best of these, in my opinion, is his video on Michael Mann’s Public Enemies :

Vlog . While similar to the personal review, the vlog differs strongly in mode of presentation. There is a greater focus on direct address of the viewers, and on delivering opinion rather than analysis. They’re often played up for comedic entertainment value and feature a lot of voiceover or footage of the editor themselves. Chez Lindsay’s video on Joel Schumacher’s The Phantom of the Opera is a sprawling, informative, funny journey through theater and cinema history that in many respects encompasses elements of the video essay but first and foremost is grounded in a personal perspective. Outside of film, the work Jon Bois does at SB Nation in his series Pretty Good would also fall under this category (his latest, on character types in 24 , is very much worth the watch). The popular YouTube series CinemaSins would also fall under this category, which relies moreso on personal nit-picking than film analysis.

Scene Breakdown . A visually-driven close reading of a scene (or many scenes in one film) that leans heavily on explaining film form and technique. Tony Zhou is especially skilled at this, and his scene breakdowns often come nestled in a video about many scenes, like his look at ensemble staging in Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder or the approach to staging a fight scene in his video Jackie Chan—How to Do Action Comedy :

Shot Analysis . A cousin of the supercut and scene breakdown, though more analytical in nature than the former, the shot analysis dissects a shot or a repeated type of shot. Josh Forrest’s engaging video on the insert shot in David Fincher’s Zodiac is not shot analysis in and of itself; it’s more of a supercut. David Chen’s Edgar Wright and the Art of Close-Ups , on the other hand, is definitely a shot analysis, turning its compilation structure into a video essay by virtue of its director’s commentary track (which we might call the DVD-era ancestor of the video essay):

Structural Analysis . To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, these videos look at a film’s story shape, seeking to uncover hidden meaning or a subtextual emphasis by viewing the film as a collection of scenes rather than necessarily a plot or narrative. Kevin B. Lee’s Between the Lines: THE DAY HE ARRIVES is one of the best videos in this field, comparing repeated scenes in Hong Sang-soo’s film to reveal the film’s playful interpretation of time passing. One of my video essays for Fandor last year, Containing the Madness: George A. Romero’s THE CRAZIES , was an attempt to engage with this mode of video essay:

Side-by-side Analysis . Not a supercut, not yet a shot analysis. The side-by-side is a fascinating form of the video essay pushed by essayists like Cristina Álvarez Lopez, Catherine Grant ( All That Pastiche Allows ) and, in recent months, Davide Rapp, which finds meaning through visual comparison of two or more film clips in real-time. In What is Neorealism? , kogonada brilliantly employs the side-by-side comparison to reflect on the ideological and creative differences between Vittorio de Sica and David O. Selznick in the cutting of the same picture.

Side-by-sides with voiceover narration are relatively rare. Álvarez, Grant and Rapp tend to let viewers interpret the footage on their own. Rapp’s series of videos under the Seeing Double and Seeing Triple moniker place sequences from films and their various remakes side-by-side and implicitly address not only specific but generational aesthetic and narrative priorities. A particularly illuminating video in this collection is his look at Michael Haneke’s two versions of Funny Games :

Recut . The line between video essay and video art is blurred when we look at the imaginative re-purposing of texts. Filmscalpel’s 12 Silent Men is a good example of this, which was shared as a video essay despite being very similar in form to Vicki Bennett’s work of video art, 4:33: The Movie . Davide Rapp’s enchanting SECRET GATEWAYS (below), where he maps the space of a house in a Buster Keaton short and then moves his virtual camera between each of these rooms, is a more visually-focused re-purposing. I’d count my video essay, The Secret Video Essays of Jenni Olson , as also being a part of this form. It’s worth noting that an imaginative recut does not need to be visual, it can also be conceptual, as in Jeremy Ratzlaff’s Paul Thomas Anderson: A Chronological Timeline . This recut concept also extends to re-purposed marketing materials or film trailers, as seen in The Maze of Susan Lowell by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, which suggests an alternate cut of The Big Combo with Susan as the protagonist. The very popular YouTube series Honest Trailers would also fall into the category of the recut, as they mimic and parody film trailer form, though their comedic narration-as-criticism does blur the line even more.

Subject Essay . These videos typically tell a story to explore a filmmaker’s (or actor’s, cinematographer’s, etc.) body of work, an era of filmmaking or a recurring motif in a lot of films, incorporating elements of scene, shot and thematic analysis. For the most part, the better videos in this field seek to educate or inform the viewer about a relatively unknown body of work or period of time. In this vein they teeter on the edge of conventional documentary cinema, like Kevin B. Lee’s Bruce Lee, Before and After the Dragon , and are reminiscent of some of the essay films of Mark Rappaport (whose body of work in and of itself defies easy genre labels). An unconventional example of this, and one of the best video essays of 2015, is Tony Zhou’s Vancouver Never Plays Itself . Another unconventional example, and one which straddles the modes of supercut and shot analysis, is Rishi Kaneria’s brilliant Why Props Matter .

Academic Supplement . When Kevin B. Lee made his refractive video essay What Makes a Video Essay Great? back in 2014, he used an excerpt from Thomas van den Berg’s Reliable Unreliability vs Unreliable Reliability or, Perceptual Subversions of the Continuity Editing System , a chiefly academic piece of video criticism that runs for over half an hour, features lecture-like narration and is grounded in academic and theoretical concepts of cinema. While this video does stand on its own as analysis, when I say supplement I mean that it is supplemental to the academic form. Some of the video works from David Bordwell, which he has termed video lectures, are examples of this form, in spite of what they have in common with shot analysis and filmic survey (in particular, his Constructive Editing in Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket ). Catherine Grant, another academic working in the realm of video essays, has managed to often subvert this expectation that academics making video essays will make supplementary works, turning in some wonderfully imaginative and non-academic videos like her brilliant UN/CONTAINED .

Desktop Video . A recent mode of video arguably born from the metatextual work of Harun Farocki ( Interface in particular), this seeks to present an argument about film within the confines of a computer screen. It’s worth noting that while the visual experience is tethered to a screen, like the recent horror flick Unfriended, it’s often not actually a real-time one-take desktop journey. The defining film in this field (arguably moving beyond the video essay label to become an experimental documentary in its own right) is Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake :

As you can see from the various definitions above, the problem with all of these videos standing under the umbrella category of the video essay is that they’re all trying to do different things and aiming for different audiences. Because of this, when any two practitioners talk about what they like in video essays, they may be talking about very different things, not just in terms of content but in what they think the purposes of these videos are. Earlier this month Filmmaker Magazine posted a series of responses to the question What is a Video Essay? and answers ranged from a tool to stimulate better film viewing to a new form of essay filmmaking; and from a means of expressing cinephile obsession to a means of critiquing that same obsession.

On the other hand, what’s certain is that these videos, in their multitude of forms, have become very popular online over the last few years. There are many communities forming in the world of video essays, not just within publishing sites like the one you’re visiting now, but also in the “schools” of approaches taken by like-minded video makers. The mostly straightforward film-analysis approach is a favorite among very popular YouTubers. The academic-minded teaching aide is championed by the online journal [in]Transition. The personal love letter to cinema arises in supercuts and most single-film videos. The miniature essay film floats in and out of categorization, making it one of the most interesting forms of video essay.

Here at Keyframe I’ll be writing about various approaches to the video essay, looking at a wide variety of videos and video essayists and speaking to curators and editors to try to understand just how we got to where we are now. I’ll explore questions such as: why do some supercuts work better than others; when and when not to use voiceover and much more. Join us, won’t you?

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Home Resources Free Guides Video Essays Guide Introduction to Video Essays

VIDEO ESSAYS GUIDE

Introductory guide to video essays, introduction to video essays, studying and researching film through film, “if it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed” – stanley kubrick, "...why can filmmaking, film curation, and film criticism not co-exist” – lindiwe dovey.

Drawing on the inspiring work of pioneering educators and researchers engaging with this creative method, this guide aims to offer a research-led introduction for students, teachers and researchers approaching the video essay for the first time.

From 2014, with the foundation of [in]Transition, the first online, open access, peer-reviewed journal of videographic film and moving image studies, an increasing number of academic journals have been welcoming video essays. However, the written word remains the dominant language to disseminate scholarly work, with shared conventions in terms of register, structure and length. In contrast, a glimpse at the range of published video essays evidences the diversity of approaches. While this may be a great opportunity for innovation and creativity, it also presents challenges. How to make video essays? What are their pedagogical benefits, as compared to written papers? What are the technological expectations? How to design assessment briefs to ensure they are equivalent to written papers? Is such equivalence relevant? If the approaches are so varied, what are the criteria of evaluation? What are the copyright issues, if any, when reusing creative work for the purpose of making an argument, audiovisually? And, more importantly, where to start?

Video essays are scholarly videos that invite researchers and class members to explore the audiovisual and multimedia language to make an academic argument. When applied to film research and pedagogy, the video essay is thus a recursive text. That is, the object of study, film, is mediated, or rather, performed, through the film medium. This is a kind of academic piece that encourages creativity, but more importantly, action. As such, video essays have a transformative dimension. When used in the classroom, for instance, as creative assessment methods, they foster a collaborative environment where teachers and students - that is, class members - are co-producers of knowledge, informed by different positionalities. Video essays can thus contribute to a kind of education that Paulo Friere (2018[1978]: 80-81) referred to as the “problem-posing education”, as “the practice of freedom”. This contrasts with the “banking” or “digestive” education as the practice of domination, where students are mere passive recipients of the knowledge transferred from tutors. As universities seek to decolonise the curriculum, video essays seem as pertinent as ever to foster active, creative and critical modes of learning, based on thinking through making. However, the experimental potential in video essays also leads to a certain degree of uncertainty to all class members and eager researchers who would like to venture into this creative arena of knowledge production. Creative educators and researchers are collectively seeking an academic space for video essays, legitimising their production, and suggesting ways of engaging with this kind of recursive language.

As Christian Keathley notes, “the essential question faced in the production of scholarly video is not technical, but conceptual” (2012). That is, video essays, like any other scholarly work, are concerned with the contribution to knowledge. But, how to achieve this? In this guide, we first look at the existing guidelines for the production and evaluation across the different journals, finding some coherence across them. We then suggest some ways of making them, dividing the process in three phases: preproduction, production and postproduction, in alignment with the filmmaking process. These guidelines do not aim to be prescriptive by any means. Rather, they seek to assist the video-making process . Due to our emphasis on the academic value of video essays, we further offer an overview to copyright considerations to take into account for its lawful, ethical and rigorous publication . We also include several journals and dissemination spaces. Finally, we share a case study of the application of the video essay as a creative assessment method at SOAS, University of London.

How to make video essays. Dr Shane O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking at Kingston University and Curator of Archives for Education .

Finding Coherence Across Journals

How to make video essay guides, copyright considerations, dissemination.

How to Make a Video Essay (with 5 Inspiring Examples)

• Serra Ardem

Create Subtitles, Voiceovers, and Transcripts in Minutes

Effortlessly generate subtitles, voiceovers, and transcripts in over 100 languages. Powered by advanced AI.

In the world of digital media, video essays are a canvas where creativity meets critical thinking. From pre-production planning to post-production editing, these videos require a careful balance of visual elements, narrative structure, and technical skills to effectively communicate your ideas.

In this blog, we will:

• Explore different types of video essays
• Guide you on how to make a video essay step-by-step
• List 10 best practices for creating compelling video essays
• Share 5 great video essay examples for further inspiration

Let’s get started.

What is a video essay?

A video essay is essentially a written essay brought to life through the use of video footage, narration, music, and other multimedia elements. As a form of creative nonfiction, it blends the depth of written essays with the power of visual storytelling.

Best video essays are:

• Personal and reflective; often explore the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
• Multifaceted and creative; combine various forms of media to keep viewers engaged.
• Argumentative or analytical; present a thesis and support it with evidence, or break down and analyze a particular subject.
• Thought-provoking; aim to stimulate viewers’ critical thinking and intellectual curiosity.

Before we delve into the steps on how to make a video essay, let’s take a look at its different types:

How to Make a Video Essay Step-by-Step

Whether you’re exploring a personal story or making a strong argument about a current issue, video essays offer a powerful format for self-expression and analysis. Here is how to make a video essay in 3 stages:

Pre-production

• Choose your topic and define your thesis statement. Select a topic that interests you and that you understand well. Then develop a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or claim of your essay. For example, if you’re creating a personal college application video, your thesis might focus on how a specific experience shaped your worldview or contributed to your personal growth.
• Gather research materials. Conduct thorough research to gather information that supports your thesis. Make sure to organize your sources so you can reference them accurately during the production and editing phases.
• Develop an outline and craft a script. Break down your outline into introduction, body, and conclusion. List the main points you will cover in each section. This will ensure that your essay flows logically and smoothly. Then write a script that expands on your outline.
• Create a storyboard. You don’t have to be a professional artist; just sketch out a basic visual plan of how your video will unfold. Map out the key scenes, shots, and visual elements that correspond to your outline. Include captions and notes to describe each shot.
• Prepare your equipment and software. Gather the video equipment for your video production, such as camera, microphone, tripod, and lighting. If you’re going to use AI tools, familiarize yourself with the software and test it with sample footage to ensure it works as expected.

• Set up your equipment. Position your camera, lighting, and microphone according to your script. Make sure that the camera is stable, the microphone is properly set up for clear audio, and the lighting is adjusted to enhance visibility and create the desired mood.
• Record or generate your video. Follow your script and storyboard to shoot the necessary footage. Pay specific attention to framing, focus, and audio quality during recording.

If you’re using an AI video generator, provide the tool with your script, and select the desired style or aesthetic for your video. The AI will then process your input and generate the video essay. You may need to provide additional details or make adjustments during the generation process.

10 AI Video Generators for Beginners (with Best Practices)

Post-production.

• Edit your footage. Import it into your chosen video editing software. (Popular options include Adobe Premiere Pro , Final Cut Pro , and DaVinci Resolve .) Arrange clips according to your script and storyboard, trim unnecessary parts, and correct any visual or audio errors for a polished final look. In case of AI video generators, review the generated content carefully and utilize the tool’s editing features as you need.
• Incorporate music, sound effects, and text overlays. Make sure that auditory elements complement the mood and do not overshadow narration. Integrate text overlays to introduce sections, highlight key points, or provide additional context. All these elements must be seamlessly integrated and add value to your video essay.
• Add subtitles and a transcript . Subtitles will make your video essay accessible to a broader audience and facilitate comprehension for those who prefer or require visual text. Always check if captions are synchronized with the audio and accurately represent the spoken content. Meanwhile, generate a transcript of the video to provide a textual version of the content, which can also aid in SEO and accessibility.
• Do a final review and make necessary adjustments. Watch your video essay in its entirety to ensure that all elements are cohesive and effective. Consider seeking feedback from others to confirm that your video conveys your message clearly.
• Export and upload your video essay. Choose the appropriate format and resolution for your intended platform. When uploading your video, write a compelling title and add an eye-catching thumbnail to attract viewers. Include relevant keywords and tags to increase discoverability.

10 Best Practices for Making Video Essays

In addition to the instructions mentioned above, these 10 best practices on how to make a video essay can make your content even more impactful:

• Rehearse your script. Practice makes perfect, so rehearse your timing, intonation, and pacing to reduce the likelihood of errors and improve overall presentation.
• Have a strong opening and closing. Start the video essay with an intriguing introduction to grab your audience’s attention, and end with a strong conclusion to reinforce your main points and leave a lasting impression.
• Avoid rambling or going off on targets. Stay focused on your main points and do not include unnecessary elaboration or unrelated anecdotes, as every segment must contribute to your thesis.
• Incorporate data or statistics. Present them in a clear and understandable way, utilizing visuals like charts or graphs to make it more relatable for viewers.
• Use B-roll footage, graphics, and animations to enrich your main content. These elements can help you illustrate complex ideas, reinforce your arguments, and make your video essay more memorable.
• Provide high-quality audio. Minimize background noise during recording, and adjust audio levels and eliminate any distracting sounds during post-production.
• Prioritize accessibility. Include subtitles and closed captions to aid deaf and hard of hearing viewers while maintaining high contrast between text and background for better readability.
• Encourage audience interaction. Add calls-to-action (CTAs) for viewers to comment, like, share, or subscribe, and ask them to share their opinions and experiences related to the topic.
• Track and optimize. Regularly check view counts, watch times, and engagement rates to understand how well your content is performing and analyze the data to refine your approach.
• Experiment and have fun. Try different approaches, such as using various editing styles or narrative techniques, and stay open-minded along your creative journey.

Add AI Subtitles to Your Video Essay

This will not only improve the accessibility of your video essay but also boost its SEO performance and multiply your viewership.

5 Powerful Video Essay Examples

Featuring an example from each category, these 5 videos can inspire you with various approaches on how to make a video essay.

Personal Video Essay

This college application video is a great example of a personal video essay. With a clear structure, it demonstrates why the person is a good candidate and utilizes editing features smoothly. The effective use of graphics, background music, subtitles, and transitions all contribute to the success of the video.

Argumentative Video Essay

This argumentative video essay named “How Discounts Keep You Poor” shows the importance of well-done research for this kind of content. The main argument is supported by solid reasons and examples, which are highlighted with eye-catching text overlays. The call to action at the end of the video invites viewers to share their own thoughts on the subject and subscribe to the channel.

Analysis Video Essay

Titled “Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now?” , this analysis video essay focuses on how movies have evolved since modernism. Based on movements like postmodernism and metamodernism, the content is organized into chapters to create a logical flow. A professional voiceover accompanies high-quality footage from movies, all creating a final harmonious piece.

How to Add Chapters to Youtube Videos

Experimental video essay.

Going beyond traditional video game reviews, this experimental video essay explores gaming as a perfectionist . It adopts unique audiovisual techniques to blend in-depth analysis with unconventional storytelling. The clever use of humor and game footage also adds an experimental flair to the typical video essay format.

Hybrid Video Essay

This hybrid video essay titled “drowning in entertainment: the age of distraction” combines personal, argumentative, analysis, and even experimental formats to delve deep into how we interact with information today. It uses attention-grabbing B-roll footage, still images, and text overlays to enhance the narrative. The talking head sections further personalize the content, allowing the creator to build a direct and engaging connection with the audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a video essay, how do you get ideas for a video essay, what to wear for a video essay, how to make a video essay for youtube, how to make a video essay for class.

Featuring actionable tips, this blog covered the steps on how to make a video essay and listed 10 best practices for making this kind of content even more polished and memorable. It also shared 5 inspiring video essay examples in different types.

Here are our 3 golden rules for creating an impactful video essay:

• Define and stick to your thesis statement. This will be the core of your video essay and help you stay focused during the production phase.
• Have a strong beginning and end. Both should be carefully crafted to hook your audience from the start and provide a satisfying conclusion that ties everything together.
• Utilize various multimedia elements. Incorporate video footage, images, text overlays, and music to express complex ideas and maintain viewer interest.

Follow the tips in this blog to refine your video essay creation process, and feel free to experiment with different formats along the way.

About Serra Ardem

Serra Ardem is a freelance writer and editor based in Istanbul. For the last 8 years, she has been collaborating with brands and businesses to tell their unique story and develop their verbal identity.

Video Essays: Video Essays

What is a video essay.

What is a video essay?

A video essay can examine an argument, critique a theory or work or reflect on a production process using digital clips, imagery, sound, and voice over. An important point to note is that a video essay is not simply a written essay readout on film.

" Video essays combine different forms of media such as  video  (film),  audio  (voice-over, music, sounds), and  text  to study or analyze a topic. Many have structures similar to a written essay, with an introduction, body, and conclusion. An effective video essay will have a strong thesis or argument." 

Producing a video essay will allow you to complete assessments using and showcasing learned skills relevant to your course work. 

"Rather than merely presenting facts about a subject and calling it a day, a video essay tends to be more personal and opinionated, sparking an interesting discussion around analysing the subject matter."

The analytical aspect of the work is key to creating a video essay.

Types of video essays

This is a comprehensive article that outlines 11 types of video essays and includes examples http://norbateman.co/11-ways-to-make-a-video-essay/

How to make a video essay

Just like a written essay, you will need to plan out your argument and the order of points you wish to convey.

Once you have a notion of your argument or assessment question you will need to find supporting literature and material that backs up that argument.

Source material

Now that you know what you want to say and you've collected supporting research to support your chosen topic you can begin to collate or create  video clips that will make up your visual essay.

Record audio

Record your accompanying voice over. 

Edit your video essay so that it is seamless and each scene works to highlight your argument. 

Both of these links below provide great points for how to make a video essay:

https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/audiovisualessay/resources/how-to-guides/how-to-video-essays-by-greer-fyfe-and-miriam-ross/

https://www.matrix.edu.au/the-ultimate-video-essay-checklist/

• The Ultimate Video Essay checklist This website comprehensively outlines steps you might want to take to complete your video essay

Using ClickView for your video essay

The Library has a collection of off-air recordings that can be viewed at AFTRS as well as remotely using AFTRS login credentials. The collection includes a number of Films, Television series, Documentaries and short films. Off-air Recordings can also be clipped and used in assignments.

Click here to find out how to use ClickView for your video essay

Video essay tips and tricks

Follow this link for tips and tricks

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/successful-video-essay-secrets/

Video Essay Guides

269. What Makes a Video Essay Great? from Kevin B. Lee on Vimeo .

• Last Updated: Oct 26, 2021 1:23 PM
• URL: https://libguides.aftrs.edu.au/Thevideoessay