Video Essay Assignment | College Homework Help

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What is a Video Essay?

A video essay (also known as audiovisual essay) is the basic equivalent to a written

essay, except that it is produced into a visual format i.e. a video. The term video

essay as it is still evolving and derives from film studies. ‘From the screen studies

perspective, it is a video that analyses specific topics or themes relating to film and

television and is relevant as it comments on film in its own language.

This guide refers to the video essay from the context of the academic audiovisual

essay as a multimodal form that combines written, audio and visual modes to

communicate an idea. As a structure, the video essay is thesis-driven, and uses

images with text so that the audience can read and interpret the idea or argument in

a multimodal way.

In educational settings, the term video essay is used broadly for teacher/student-

learner generated video and as a vehicle to transmediate between written-text to

digital forms. Through the video essay form, students are able to achieve learning

outcomes in a new way as a multimodal experience while engaging with the subject,

task or assessment through expression and creation of self-knowledge.’

Source: https://ecu.au.libguides.com/video-essay/how-to-do-a-video-essay

Terminology

Audiovisual essay (see Video essay)

Multimodal Literacy: “Focuses on the design of discourse by investigating the contributions of specific semiotic resources (e.g. language, words, gesture, images) co-deployed across various modalities (e.g. visual, aural, somatic), as well as their interaction and integration in constructing a coherent text.” See: https://multimodalstudies.wordpress.com/what-is-multimodal-literacy/

Semiotics: the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

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Video Essay (or audiovisual essay): is the basic equivalent to a written essay, but presented in a visual format such as a video which usually contains a combination of video, still images, music, voice recording and text. Visual Representation: used for meaning-making involves the viewer seeing the whole picture all at once. It is used as a design element and is the representation of space in time. Visual meaning is growing in significance in today’s society and is increasingly used for communication. The use of screens sees the modes of text and visual meaning come together.

Components

What you will need:

 Written component (Essay)

 Storyboard

 Script

 Images (stills)

 Videos (motion)

 Sound (music, voice recording, sound effects)

 Video camera or phone camera and/ or utilise existing videos from YouTube

etc. or rip DVD movies

 Microphone (if you are recording voice or interviews)

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Storyboard

Watch: Video tutorial Story boarding: https://youtu.be/ux_Em1lVsjI

Storyboard template

Free downloads – https://www.printablepaper.net/

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How to Create a Video Essay

 How to Create Video Essays – Video Essay Warriors

 On Making Video Essays – Patrick (H) Willems

 Equipment for Video Essay Channels – Video Essay Warriors

Video editing software

WINDOWS/ PC

Windows Movie Maker

Movie Maker Tutorial: https://youtu.be/TXr_kzfnCM4

MAC

iMovie Basics: Video editing tutorial for beginners: https://youtu.be/VF2mUJ0P3xU

Adobe Premiere Pro (CC) – a little more professional – Free 7 Day Trial. After it is a

monthly subscription.

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Articles and web resources

1. How to do a Video Essay – Edith Cowan University:

https://ecu.au.libguides.com/video-essay

2. What is a mode?

3. What is multimodality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt5wPIhhDDU

4. FILM STUDIES IN MOTION: Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

5. Has the Video Essay Arrived? (2017)

6. HOW-TO VIDEO ESSAYS by Greer Fyfe and Miriam Ross

7. How to Make Video Essays: Resources for Teachers and Students

8. An Introduction to the Video Essay Suite

9. Multimodal Composition in Kairos: A Rhizomatic Retrospective

10. On the Origin of the Video Essay

11. Reframe: Resources & How To Guides

12. Resources for Teachers

13. Teaching the Scholarly Video

14. Teaching While Learning: What I Learned When I Asked My Students to Make

Video Essays

15. The Video Essay: The Future of Academic Film and Television Criticism?

16. [in]transition – Resources

17. The Video Essay As Art (Conor Bateman)