Making Video Essays
What is a Video Essay?
A video essay is a piece of video content that, much like a written essay, advances an argument. Video essays take advantage of the structure and language of film to advance their arguments -Wikipedia
Using this Site
This site will take you through the basics of how to make your own video essay. Below you will find some introductory content that will prime you how to think about making your essay. The other pages on this site, reflected in the menu, will be divided into specific technical tasks involved with producing your video essay.
An Introduction to Video Essays
In this short 6 min video, youtuber Indietrix Film Review describes some strategies for coming up with ideas for your essay, explains some of the common themes that are explored, and lastly gives some insights on how they use their experience with writing written essays as a lens to create scripts for their video essays.
"Think of one of your favorite films, pick something distinctive that you like about it, or a particular scene or sequence, and try to work out what makes it so good. That's a great way to approach a rough structure for your video." -Indietrix Film Review
Example Video Essays: Professional
In the essay below, G-man Da Black Film Nerd breaks down beautifully what makes a scene in Black Panther a perfect shot. This is a great example of how using some additional overlays like arrows can help illustrate your argument.
In the short video essay below, the author examines how the film is composed visually creates tension in storytelling. This is a great example of how you can reuse the same clips to emphasize an argument. The example made at 1:29, in particular, is very compelling.
In another example by Every Frame a Painting, the video essay below examines how choices made by the main character are represented by either facing or moving left or right on screen and parallel the characters moral development and progression
Example Video Essays: Student
Video Essay on White Narrative by Alexa de la Fuente, analyzes how films around social justice issues, specifically in Latin American countries, are framed around the white narrative.
The video essay below by Malery Nguyen explores how the construction of family dynamics in fiction films reflects the experience of many youth in Latin American countries.
malery-hisp-final.mp4