Video Essay Lab
This course invites students to experiment with the creation of video essays. A genre that has experienced a significant rise in popularity in recent years, the video essay is a piece of video that draws on images from other film and media texts in order to build an argument. In this part seminar, part hands-on course, we will look into the various types of video essays and the formal and rhetorical strategies used to express ideas creatively and effectively through audiovisual means. Students will have the chance experiment with different techniques in small weekly assignments, culminating in the production of their own video essay.
Some questions that will guide our discussions include: How can ideas be communicated through images and sounds? What differences does the medium of film maintain compared to a typical written text? How can re-editing and remixing techniques provide a fresh look into preexisting film and media texts? How does the recent trend of internet video essays relate to the tradition of the essay film in cinema?