Video Essay: Cinema History

Video Essay: Cinema History

This post is for my Cinema History students who are required to compile a video essay.

Project Overview

Historical in nature and requiring some library research, this multi-step group and individual project takes the form of a video essay. Specifically, the group will organize, investigate, and present to the class a film(s), director, movement, technological innovation, etc. according to its place within a historical context and in light of historical developments. Additionally, each student will submit a short written account of the video essay and his/her contribution to it as well as a written evaluation of the group.

What Is a Video Essay?

Also called “media stylos,” the video essay, according to Eric Faden,

  • is designed initially to move across a series of potential platforms from classroom to conference presentation to web streaming
  • does not abandon the tools and techniques of oral or alphabetic culture; it simply can use them in new ways
  • moves scholarship beyond just creating knowledge and takes on an aesthetic, poetic function
  • should evoke the same pleasure, mystery, allure, and seduction as the very movies that initiated our scholarly inquiry
  • should consider formal issues in addition to content (i.e., the creator must consider ideas of image, voice, pacing, text, sound, music, montage, rhythm, etc. In effect, s/he has to deal with the very same problems that his/her subjects deal with)

Rules for OUR Video Essay Project

For the purpose of our project, students should abide by the “rules” above in addition to these listed below. Specifically, all Cinema History video essays should:

  1. be based on and serve as a visual extension of the reading you’ve signed up for
  2. contain a clearly defined thesis
  3. include some form of narration (e.g., voiceovers, intertitles, subtitles)
  4. support the thesis with clips and/or still images from/of the films, directors, subjects, etc. under discussion
  5. include a bibliographic title card citing at least THREE secondary sources to support your project (your course textbook may serve as one of those sources)
  6. boast a catchy title that reiterates the thesis
  7. last no longer than 5 minutes

Grade Breakdown

  • Video Essay (15%): Groups may upload their projects to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc., but they should also submit their projects on a DVD.
  • Written Account (10%): No longer than two double-spaced, typed pages, this paper should serve as an accompaniment to the group’s visual presentation. It might address, for example, why the members selected certain film clips (and not others) and why the group settled on this particular subject rather than another chapter/theme. The account might also consider the ordering of the project, the shot/scene transitions, the software used, and/or the background music.
  • Evaluation (5%): full questionnaire found here. Due the week following your group’s presentation.

DVD Ripping Software

Windows

Mac OS

Finally, here’s Lifehacker‘s “Five Best DVD Ripping Tools.”

Historical Video Essays: Some Samples

While the following are fine examples of video essays, please note that many of them do not include ALL of the features required for your class project. Please keep that in mind as you review the videos.

The History of Horror Films

Project for a student’s mass communication class. Summer 2008.

The Evolution of the Modern Blockbuster: Part 1

by Matt Zoller Seitz and Aaron Aradillas– At a time when summer movies seem uniquely capable of consolidating the cultural discourse, our Evolution of the Modern Blockbuster series looks back to the summers, and summer movies, of 1984 and 1989, when MTV editing, post-Boomer cynicism and other cultural sea changes converged to shape the summer blockbuster we all know and can’t avoid.

Bad Seeds: Creepy Kids on Film

by Nicolas Rapold and Matt Zoller Seitz — a look back at the history of creepy kids in the movies. (Click here for a transcript.)