music video essay example

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

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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. 

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• 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 →
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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 →

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Taylor Swift’s Blank Space Music Video: Analysis Example

Blank space video analysis: introduction, analyzing the ‘blank space’ video, blank space music video analysis: conclusion, works cited.

A music video is a short film integrating song and imagery. It is produced for promotional and artistic purposes (Machin 52). Music videos have evolved significantly over the years. Most of the traditional and modest scenes in the videos, which mainly involved bands and artists playing their own instruments, have been replaced by multimillion dollar high conceptual performances. The replacement is mainly as a result of the emergence and availability of cheap and free digital video equipment and platforms, such as YouTube. A song is always produced before the conception of a video (Machin 64). It is mainly because directors and video producers use the song as a guide in the production of images and film that sell the song to the intended audience (Gomez 53).

In most cases, music videos are an interpretation of the lyrics in the song. However, some are produced without a set out concept and are merely a filmed version to the song’s live performance (Gomez 54). In spite of the logic behind the production of music videos, most people agree that they are mainly meant to help an artist or band promote a song or album (Vernallis 221). A number of factors are taken into consideration in the production of a video. Such elements are used to determine, for instance, how different moments are set up and ‘departed from’. Most importantly, they determine why some scenes are more significant than others.

In this paper, the author will provide a critical and an in-depth analysis of a contemporary music video. The aim is to discern the relationship between the song and how the lyrics are animated through the techniques of the film. The analysis largely draws from the tools used in the book “Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context”. The author selected the video for Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” song.

The song “Blank Space” is an electropop composition by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It is from her fifth studio album, “1989”, released in 2014. It is written by Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. The song became a critical and commercial success, hitting a record four hundred million views on YouTube in its first week of release. The video accompanying the song was shot for over three days at Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York.

The Narrative

Taylor Swift’s video for the song “Blank Space” is based on a narrative. It is mainly because the film presents the storyline described in the lyrics of the song (Gomez 78). All the actions in the video describe what is said in the song itself. The film tells the story of a dating couple whose relationship goes up in flames when the man cheats on the lady. As a result, the lady seeks revenge. The arguments arising from this incidence are captured in the video and are also evident in the song. For example, the girl sings “I can make the tables turn, roses garden filled with thorns, keep you second guessing like Oh My God who is she?” ( Blank Space ). The anger and jealousy of the woman is also evident as she throws a potted plant at her cheating boyfriend. She shouts “I get drunk on jealousy” ( Blank Space ).

The story tells of how Taylor Swift takes revenge by setting her boyfriend’s clothes on fire and tearing down his pictures. She screams “so it’s going to be forever or it’s going to go down in flames” ( Blank Space ). She goes ahead to inflict more pain on him by damaging his car with a golf stick. Eventually, the man leaves her, becoming her ex-lover. However, as the video ends, a new man pulls up into the driveway, continuing the long list of ex-lovers depicted in the song. The girl sings “got a long list of ex-lovers they will tell you I’m insane, but I have a blank space baby and I will write your name” ( Blank Space ).

Lyrical Connection

As stated earlier, the video to the song “Blank Space” is based on a narrative. As such, it presents the storyline described in the lyrics. For instance, the line “nice to meet you, where have you being, I can show incredible things” ( Blank Space ) is accompanied by video images of a man walking into the castle and Taylor Swift walking down the stairs to meet him. Taylor goes ahead to describe her guest in the song. She says “new money, suit and tie I can read you like a magazine” ( Blank Space ). The description is followed by an up-close shot of the man and his clothes.

Word painting, which links images to words and music, is also evident in the video (Cooper 57). For instance, when Taylor says the word ‘scar’, there appears a picture of a man with nasty scars on his face. In most scenes, Taylor Swift’s lips also sync to the rhythm of the lyrics playing in the music video. As such, there is a strong connection between the lyrics and the visuals (Vernallis 128). The video illustrates the lyrics and showcases the story.

Musical Connection

There is always a relationship between the music and the visuals of its video (Vernallis 161). In the electropop genre, the link can either be amplifying, illustrative, or contradicting (Machin 34). The strong relationship between the visuals and the music in “Blank Space” can be seen in the order and timing of the cuts. The cuts are produced according to the beats of the track. They are smooth and run evenly without being edgy or peculiar. The video also strikes a balance between instances where Taylor Swift acts as a crazy and vengeful girl and close up shots of her singing. Such a musical-visual connection not only establishes one as an artist, but also as an actor and a performer (Machin 55).

Color Scheme

The “Blank Space” music video uses neutral color schemes as is the norm in most electropop videos (Vernallis 34). However, in some parts of the video, the color system is subdued to bring about a classical and country feel to the film. The costumes used in the music video play a major role in the alteration of the color scheme. In one instance, Taylor Swift wears a brightly colored pink dress and shades. The combination signifies happier times. When the relationship ends, she switches to darker colors, which signifies sadness ( Blank Space ). By applying this technique, the producers are able to use the color scheme to control the mood in the film. However, at times, the sarcasm in the music video suppresses the mood brought about by the combination of colors. The setting is striking and natural. The house and outdoors are neutral in color, which is within the neutral color scheme.

Video Foreground

Most music videos show the artist or band that sang the song in the foreground (Vernallis 57). However, this is not always the norm. In some instances, especially in album promotional videos or song teasers, the artist is at times in the background (Cooper 57). It can be equated to playing a film with a soundtrack. It is especially seen in videos where the lyrics, music, and rhythm do not match the visuals in the video. In “Blank Space”, the artist is the foreground of the video. The reason is that her movements and actions match the lyrics and rhythm of the song.

Target Audience

Taylor Swift presents cheating, which is one of the major problems that lovers go through, in a fun and sarcastic way. The music video is a depiction of her love life as depicted in the mainstream media. Taylor Swift’s romantic streak has often been the center of attention. She is usually put on the spotlight for being in many relationships. In the video, she acts the part of a “boy-crazy” and jealous woman that is depicted in real life. For example, she sings “Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane” ( Blank Space ). Her mockery of her image in the media outlets shows a world where the narrow and sexist caricatures attached to women are acted out for the amusement of the audience (Vernallis 120). As such, the video can be seen as directed towards all those who stereotype her as a ‘boy crazy’ woman.

It is clear that a music video contains various technical and aesthetic features. The elements are clearly seen through an in-depth assessment of the video itself. An analysis of “Blank Space” reveals that one has to clearly discern the relationship between the song and the animations depicted through the techniques used in the film. It is the only way through which the audience can fully appreciate a music video.

Blank Space . Ex. Prod. Max Martin. New York: Big Machine Records. 2014. DVD.

Cooper, Lee. “Lyrical Commentaries: Learning from Popular Music.” Music Educator Journal 77.8 (2001): 56-58. Print.

Gomez, Isabel. “Narrative on Music Video.” Contemporary Film Studies 4.1 (2008): 51-82. Print.

Machin, David. Analyzing Popular Music, Los Angeles: Sage, 2010. Print.

Vernallis, Carol. Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Print.

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Guide on How to Write a Music Essay: Topics and Examples

Let's Understand What is Music Essay

You know how some school assignments are fun to write by default, right? When students see them on the course syllabus, they feel less like a burden and more like a guaranteed pleasure. They are about our interests and hobbies and therefore feel innate and intuitive to write. They are easy to navigate, and interesting topic ideas just pop into your head without much trouble.

Music essays belong to the category of fun essay writing. What is music essay? Anything from in-depth analysis to personal thoughts put into words and then to paper can fall into a music essay category. An essay about music can cover a wide range of topics, including music history, theory, social impact, significance, and musical review. It can be an analytical essay about any music genre, musical instruments, or today's music industry.

Don't get us wrong, you will still need to do extensive research to connect your opinions to a broader context, and you can't step out of academic writing standards, but the essay writing process will be fun.

In this article, our custom essay writing service is going to guide you through every step of writing an excellent music essay. You can draw inspiration from the list of music essay topics that our team prepared, and later on, you will learn what an outstanding essay on music is by an example of a music review essay.

What are Some Music Topics to Write About

There are so many exciting music topics to write about. We would have trouble choosing one. You can write about various music genres, be it country music or classical music; you can research music therapy or how music production happens.

Okay, forgive us for getting carried away; music makes us enthusiastic. Below you will find a list of various music essay topics prepared from our thesis writing service . Choose one and write a memorable essay about everyone's favorite art form.

Music Argumentative Essay Topics

Music essays can be written about an infinite number of themes. You can even write about performance or media comparison.

Here is a list of music argumentative essay topics. These edge-cutting topics will challenge your readers and get you an easy A+.

• Exploring the evolution of modern music styles of the 21st century
• Is it ethical to own and play rare musical instruments?
• Is music therapy an effective mental health treatment?
• Exploring the Intersection of Technology and Creativity in electronic music
• The Relevance of traditional music theory in modern music production
• The Role of musical pieces in the Transmission of cultural identity
• The value of historical analysis in understanding the significance of music in society
• How does exposing listeners to different genres of music break down barriers
• Exploring the cognitive effects of music on human brain development
• The therapeutic potential of music in treating mental disorders

Why is Music Important Essay Topics

Do you know which essay thrills our team the most? The importance of music in life essay. We put our minds together and came up with a list of topics about why music is so central to human life. Start writing why is music important essay, and we guarantee you that you will be surprised by how much fun you had crafting it.  

• Popular Music and its Role in shaping cultural trends
• Music as a metaphorical language for expressing emotions and thoughts
• How music changes and influences social and political movements
• How the music of different countries translates their history to outsiders
• The innate connection between music and human beings
• How music helps us understand feelings we have never experienced
• Does music affect our everyday life and the way we think?
• Examining the cross-cultural significance of music in society
• How rock music influenced 70's political ideologies
• How rap music closes gaps between different racial groups in the US

Consider delegating your ' write my essay ' request to our expert writers for crafting a perfect paper on any music topic!

Why I Love Music Essay Topics

We want to know what is music to you, and the best way to tell us is to write a why I love music essay. Below you will find a list of music essay topics that will help you express your love for music.

• I love how certain songs and artists evoke Memories and Emotions
• I love the diversity of music genres and how different styles enrich my love for music
• I love how music connects me with people of different backgrounds
• How the music of Linkin Park helped me through life's toughest challenges
• What does my love for popular music say about me?
• How the unique sounds of string instruments fuel my love for music
• How music provides a temporary Release from the stresses of daily life
• How music motivates me to chase my dreams
• How the raw energy of rock music gets me through my daily life
• Why my favorite song is more than just music to me

Need a Music Essay ASAP?

Our expert team is quick to get you an A+ on all your assignments!

Music Therapy Essay Topics

One of the most interesting topics about music for an essay is music therapy. We are sure you have heard all the stories of how music cures not only mental but also physical pains. Below you can find a list of topics that will help you craft a compelling music therapy essay. And don't forget that you can always rely on our assistance for fulfilling your ' write my paper ' requests!

• The effectiveness of music therapy in reducing stress and pain for cancer patients
• Does pop music have the same effects on music therapy as classical music?
• Exploring the benefits of music therapy with other genres beyond classical music
• The potential of music therapy in aiding substance abuse treatment and recovery
• The Role of music therapy in Addressing PTSD and Trauma in military veterans
• The impact of music therapy on enhancing social interaction and emotional expression in individuals with developmental disabilities
• The use of music therapy in managing chronic pain
• Does musical therapy help depression?
• Does music reduce anxiety levels?
• Is music therapy better than traditional medicine?

History of Music Essay Topics

If you love analytical essays and prefer to see the bigger picture, you can always write a music description essay. Below you can find some of the most interesting topics for the history of music essay.

• The Significance of natural instruments in music production and performance
• Tracing the historical development of Western music theory
• How electronic music traces its roots back to classical music
• How the music industry evolved from sheet music to streaming services
• How modern producers relate to classical composers
• The Origins and Influence of Jazz Music
• How folk music saved the Stories of unnamed heroes
• Do we know what the music of ancient civilizations sounded like?
• Where does your favorite bandstand in the line of music evolve?
• The Influence of African American Music on modern pop culture

Benefits of Music Essay Topics

If you are someone who wonders what are some of the values that music brings to our daily life, you should write the benefits of music essay. The music essay titles below can inspire you to write a captivating essay:

• How music can be used to promote cultural awareness and understanding
• The benefits of music education in promoting creativity and innovation
• The social benefits of participating in music groups
• The Impact of Music on Memory and Learning
• The cognitive benefits of music education in early childhood development
• The effects of music on mood and behavior
• How learning to play an instrument improves cognitive functions.
• How music connects people distanced by thousands of miles
• The benefits of listening to music while exercising
• How music can express the feelings words fail to do so 

Music Analysis Essay Example

Reading other people's papers is a great way to scale yours. There are many music essay examples, but the one crafted by our expert writers stands out in every possible way. You can learn what a great thesis statement looks like, how to write an engaging introduction, and what comprehensive body paragraphs should look like. 

Click on the sample below to see the music analysis essay example. 

How to Write a Music Essay with Steps

Writing music essays is definitely not rocket science, so don't be afraid. It's just like writing any other paper, and a music essay outline looks like any other essay structure.

• Start by choosing a music essay topic. You can use our list above to get inspired. Choose a topic about music that feels more relevant and less researched so you can add brand-new insights. As we discussed, your music essay can be just about anything; it can be a concert report or an analytical paper about the evolution of music.
• Continue by researching the topic. Gather all the relevant materials and information for your essay on music and start taking notes. You can use these notes as building blocks for the paper. Be prepared; even for short essays, you may need to read books and long articles.
• Once you have all the necessary information, the ideas in your head will start to take shape. The next step is to develop a thesis statement out of all the ideas you have in your head. A thesis statement is a must as it informs readers what the entire music essay is about. Don't be afraid to be bold in your statement; new outlooks are always appreciated.
• Next, you'll need a music essay introduction. Here you introduce the readers to the context and background information about the research topic. It should be clear, brief, and engaging. You should set the tone of your essay from the very beginning. Don't forget the introduction is where the thesis statement goes.
• One of the most important parts of essay writing is crafting a central body paragraph about music. This is where you elaborate on your thesis, make main points, and support them with the evidence you gathered beforehand. Remember, your music essay should be well structured and depict a clear picture of your ideas.
• Next, you will need to come up with an ideal closing paragraph. Here you will need to once again revisit the main points in your music essay, restate them in a logical manner and give the readers your final thoughts.
• Don't forget to proofread your college essay. Whether you write a long or short essay on music, there will be grammatical and factual errors. Revise and look through your writing with a critical mind. You may find that some parts need rewriting.

Key Takeaways

Music essays are a pleasure to write and read. There are so many topics and themes to choose from, and if you follow our How to Write a Music Essay guide, you are guaranteed to craft a top-notch essay every time.

Be bold when selecting a subject even when unsure what is research essay topic on music, take the writing process easy, follow the academic standards, and you are good to go. Use our music essay sample to challenge yourself and write a professional paper. 

If you feel stuck and have no time our team of expert writers is always ready to give you help from all subject ( medical school personal statement school help ). Visit our website, submit your ' write my research paper ' request and a guaranteed A+ essay will be on your way in just one click.

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FAQs on Writing a Music Essay

Though music essay writing is not the hardest job on the planet, there are still some questions that often pop up. Now that you have a writing guide and a list of essay topics about music, it's time to address the remaining inquiries. Keep reading to find the answers to the frequently asked questions. 

Should Artists' Music be Used in Advertising?

What type of music is best for writing an essay, why do people love music.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

How to do a Video Essay: The Video Essay Process

• Plan, Prepare & Create

Storyboarding

• Finding, Filming & Editing
• References & Credits
• The Video Essay Process

This section will give an introductory overview of the stages required to create a video essay.  Video essayers advice is to start simple and work through each stage of the video production process. Visit the Resources page of this guide for more.

Identify what is your argument? What is it that you want to communicate to the viewer? Write this down in a few sentences, refer and modify it as required.

Watch Video Essays

Watch a selection of video essays, read blogs and web pages from video essayers and decide what type of video essay you would like to create. Start simple.

A storyboard is a detailed outline (similar to an outline in a written essay) that helps you to organise and visualise the video essay as to what is on the screen, text, media, message and transitions between shots.

Storyboards assist in determining the length, message and meaning of the video essay and help save time with editing and post production processes.

• Free Storyboard Templates

Collect & Edit

Collect video material as downloads, ripping DVDs, screen grabs, mobile phone footage and create voice-overs. Use research skills to find information and statements to support your argument. Maintain a standard of quality and manage your videos by naming conventions and storage.

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.

Revisit elements of your video essay and modify as required.

Visit the Resources page of this guide for more.

• Where to find video and how to capture it
• Video Editing Basics - iMovie
• Software Guides

References & Credits

References to cite sources used in the Video Essay. Referencing is a formal, systematic way of acknowledging sources that you have used in your video essay. It is imperative that you reference all sources used (including videos, stills, music, sfx) and apply the correct formatting so that references cited can be easily traced. The referencing style used at ECU is the APA style, 6th ed. 2010. Refer to the ECU Referencing Library Guide for accurate citation in APA style.

Production credits Individuals: acknowledgement of individuals and their role in the production. Purpose: A statement for internal use, e.g. “This video was produced for [course name] at [institution’s name] in [semester, year]”

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Edith Cowan University acknowledges and respects the Noongar people, who are the traditional custodians of the land upon which its campuses stand and its programs operate. In particular ECU pays its respects to the Elders, past and present, of the Noongar people, and embrace their culture, wisdom and knowledge.

The best video essays of 2020

A year of physical separation and isolation was, not coincidentally, a year of unprecedented outreach and collaboration amongst the artists, critics and scholars at work in the burgeoning form of the video essay. Our poll of 42 of those essayists highlights 170 recommendations.

26 December 2020

By  Ariel Avissar , Cydnii Wilde Harris , Grace Lee

Introduction

As with any retrospective article, newsletter or GDPR -compliant email this year, we must begin with the unavoidable acknowledgement of: wow… what a year.

But while many essayists may have understandably been less prolific than in previous years, this year’s turmoil may have incited an even stronger drive towards the ways we can connect with each other virtually. Last year, the word ‘community’ was suggested as an overarching theme for the poll, and if a theme has emerged through this year’s results it would be an evolution of that same communal spirit into one of collaboration. It has repeatedly been collaborative projects that have helped inspire new ideas in a time when motivation wasn’t easy to find and allowed us to feel closer when we physically cannot be.

The Video Essay Podcast, created by Will DiGravio, has expanded its scope this year, co-curating The Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist (along with Cydnii Wilde Harris and Kevin B. Lee), launching the Notes on Videographic Criticism newsletter to further share news and promote interesting new work, and introducing experimental homework assignments to encourage creativity and new methods of working. Response from the video essay community has been overwhelming: the BLM Playlist (selections of which have already been screened in several online events, discussed and written about) has grown to include over 130 video essays and related audiovisual materials, and nearly 70 videographic exercises have been submitted thus far in response to the various homework assignment prompts.

Another collaborative video essay project, Once Upon a Screen , organised by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer, was published in the latest issue of The Cine-Files, and consists of a series of fantastic essays responding to a singular theme: how formative, traumatic experiences of cinema go on to impact our lives. Meanwhile, Nando v Movies gathered over 180 essayists on YouTube to come together and create the One X-Cellent Scene playlist (a sequel to 2019’s One Marvellous Scene ), collectively exploring the X-Men franchise.

These efforts were matched by increased institutional engagement, with further venues for the production and circulation of video essays joining the fold, such as the Netflix UK commissions (with an emphasis on Black creators); the new online journal Zoom Out ; Monographs , a new series of commissioned essays on Asian cinema by the Asian Film Archive ( AFA ), which premiered at the Dharamshala International Film Festival; and Thinking Images , a new videographic program at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival.

Trends and numbers

An overview of the poll, and some numbers and statistics: of the 42 contributors to the poll this year, 27 are male, 13 are female and two are non-binary. They submitted a total of 241 votes, for 170 unique entries which span online video essays, essay films, documentaries, installations and an HBO series; also a Kanye West music video! These works were made – or published – this past year, by both established essayists and newcomers to the field; they range from 24 seconds to 14 hours in length; some were viewed only once or twice prior to appearing on this poll, others had up to 10.4 million views, and everywhere in between.

Unsurprisingly, some prominent trends that emerged in the poll results this year included video essays related either directly or indirectly to the COVID -19 pandemic and its consequences (with 21 mentions); the presence of the BLM movement was also felt (with 22 mentions), as well as a more political slant to this year’s picks in general. The Once Upon a Screen collection was also featured prominently (with 25 mentions), and included the two top-mentioned videos in the poll.

The top-mentioned videos were: Once Upon a Screen: Explosive Paradox by Kevin B. Lee (12 mentions); My Mulholland by Jessica McGoff (ten mentions); Forensickness by Chloé Galibert-Laîné (nine mentions); and Feeling and Thought as They Take Form: Early Steadicam, Labor, and Technology (1974-1985) by Katie Bird (eight mentions). Catherine Grant and Luís Azevedo each had five different videos mentioned on the poll.

The videos are overwhelmingly presented in English (91 per cent) and are predominantly from the US (41 per cent) and the UK (28 per cent), while France makes up 6 per cent of the remaining votes, followed by 18 other countries (mostly in Europe). The dominant focus in terms of medium remains film (71 per cent of videos), with television (five per cent) and gaming (circa two per cent) coming in at distant second and third.

Of the essayists whose work is featured on the poll, 33 per cent are female (up from 24 per cent last year!) and 57 per cent are male (down from 68 per cent last year), with the remaining ten per cent made by mixed-gender teams or non-binary essayists. We did not parse – neither contributors nor picks – by race (among other reasons, as this would have been somewhat challenging), but hope that everyone is thinking more critically about whose voices they’re choosing to listen to and endorse.

We hope this poll continues to contribute to the ongoing conversation among creators and lovers of video essays worldwide, and that next year will see even more opportunities and venues for collaborating on, making and sharing this form that we are all so enthusiastic about; and also, you know, fewer fires and plagues?

Here are the results…

Table of contributors

(click on a name to jump to their picks.)

Film theorist and curator, Charles University in Prague & Národní filmový archiv

Forensickness

Chloé Galibert-Laîné

The author’s ongoing investigation of online communities and desktop interfaces continues to yield fascinating results. This time, it takes the form of a detective story which makes sure that no revelation waits for us at the end, but also, more importantly, that our cultural and technological mechanisms of knowledge-seeking are fundamentally flawed. Instead, it guides us through an endless road of detours whose diversity can surprise even a know-it-all desktop cinema aficionado. Not only a poignant contribution to videographic film studies but also a work that gives the adjective ‘essayistic’ a truly contemporary meaning.

Feeling and Thought as They Take Form: Early Steadicam, Labor, and Technology (1974-1985)

While examining film technology and its impact on the image content, I often wonder how to make these material interventions visible and open to reflection at the same time. Katie Bird’s exploration of the Steadicam and Panaglide camera devices indicates that videographic scholarship can be employed to overcome this dilemma. By understanding the camera operating as, first and foremost, an affective, embodied experience, many supposed ‘imperfections’ and ‘instabilities’ can be revealed as things that make the films tick. Moreover, the essay shows that the application of digital tools in archival research may have a more playful, creative side.

Crossings. On Freak Orlando

Johannes Binotto

This essay resurrects a relatively overlooked cinematic trend – the German queer cinema of the 1970s–80s and the wider tendency of stylistic and bodily excess in avant-garde cinema. What is crucial is that the author uses the short scene from Ulrike Ottinger’s Freak Orlando in a way that renovates the contemporary videographic practice as well. By putting his own body on display and overlaying the action on screen with his performance, he enables us to take the haptic visuality of the shot literally, and not just through the usual analog/digital manipulations. More of this, please.

The Wind in the Trees from Early Cinema to Pixar

Jordan Schonig

I have stumbled upon Schonig’s work thanks to Shane Denson’s new book Discorrelated Images (highly recommended, by the way), and I was happy to find out that he also makes accomplished scholarly video essays. This piece focuses on the contingencies (“rippling waves, rising dust, and fluttering leaves”) in early films and CGI animation, highlighting how digital algorithms make the distinctions between accidental qualities and careful calculation blurrier than ever. Schonig effectively demonstrates the divergences and affinities between the pre-cinematic and post-cinematic modes of staging accidents while also opening ways for addressing this complicated dialectic in the videographic form itself.

There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out of Here

Rainer Kohlberger

This year has seen the completion of a brilliant experimental film essay The Philosophy of Horror: A Symphony of Film Theory (Péter Lichter and Bori Máté). Nevertheless, as I have already mentioned this project in the last year’s poll, I would like to give a shout to another experimental work. Kohlberger’s film brings the spectacular world of disaster movies into contact with the dance of coloured dots on the surface of the image. This unpredictable humming occludes the well-worn explosions and catastrophes in Hollywood cinema and exposes them as mere paltry things compared to the horrors of filmic matter.

Live at Appleville

It may not be a videographic essay per se, but… In this video, as far from a traditional music concert as possible, the American hyperpop duo is goofing around in a dark room with a laptop showing scenes from Ratatouille. This disturbing yet strangely funny exercise creatively exploits the limitations of Covid and opens yet another place where cinema can be relocated. Somehow it could even fit as an unlikely addition to the Once Upon a Screen videographic project – a childhood cinematic trauma turned into a liberating performance. And I am not even a fan of the band…

Thinking Audiovisually

Department of Film Studies, Charles University

This is clearly a biased choice, but I still feel obliged to mention three student video essays. A workshop with Kevin B. Lee saw the birth of many short videographic exercises, some of which were developed into full-length pieces. As the videographic practice in the Czech Republic is being invented practically from scratch, I was surprised how accomplished, original, and funny the videos turned out. Thus, Lucie Formánková’s essay on her fascination with Tom Cruise’s acting, Valerie Špuláková’s work on a failed Czech dubbing of Twin Peaks, and Otto Urban’s look on the synecdochic character of trailers deserve a shout.

↑ Back to top

Ariel Avissar

Media scholar, video essayist and lecturer at the Steve Tisch School of Film and TV , Tel Aviv University

What begins as a personal account of the experience of watching Chris Kennedy’s Watching the Detectives evolves into so much more; part essay film, part desktop documentary, part conspiracy thriller with a twist ending, this epistemological audio-visual meditation expertly weaves together some of my favourite preoccupations – cultural depictions of counter-terrorism intelligence efforts, John Carpenter’s They Live!, conspiracy boards, Game of Thrones fandom and Chloé Galibert-Laîné – into one jumbled, coherent, meandering, beautiful whole. My favourite media object of the year.

A Very Long Exposure Time

This silent visual poem was produced for the Time Complex exhibition at the Yerevan Biennial 2020. While aesthetically the polar opposite of Forensickness, it similarly develops Chloé’s ongoing fascination with images – how we see them, what they reveal, what they leave out, what can we use them for. Simple, stimulating, sublime.

To The Lighthouse

Kevin B. Lee

How do you make a video essay about a film you have no access to? Lee has previously wrestled with the challenges of inaccessibility. Commissioned for the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam Critics Choice, this enthralling mashup of 36 different films starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, described by Lee as his ‘fanfic version ’of The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers, will make anyone who hasn’t seen the film feel as though they have. Arguably more enjoyable than the original, and with considerably less flatulence.

Extreme Is My Name

Johanna Vaude

Made for ARTE ’s online magazine “Blow Up”, this impressive montage is both a tribute to and a study of the works of one of my favourite directors, Kathryn Bigelow. Vaude takes Bigelow’s raw, adrenaline-fused energy then dials it up to eleven. Her video grabs hold of you from the get-go, and doesn’t let up until it’s – regrettably – over.

The Age of Emptiness

Oswald iten.

Iten’s lovingly-edited video recuts the lush imagery of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, focusing on shots devoid of human presence, and excluding human faces entirely. Fittingly accompanied by Bernard Herrmann’s score from Scorsese’s own Taxi Driver, this tale of Edwardian-era New York aristocracy is recontextualised for our current day and age. The result plays like an annotated relic of the Age of the Coronavirus, such as might be uncovered by future historians seeking to make sense of this bizarre period in human history.

Catherine Grant

This moving epigraphic tribute to the late Irrfan Khan merges Khan’s performance in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool with excerpts from Laura Mulvey’s Death 24x a Second to powerful, touching effect. Another example by Grant of what the videographic epigraph can achieve at its purest and most potent form.

House – Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Jesse Tribble

This ambitious six-part series on House MD , clocking in at four hours(!), is one of the most comprehensive analyses of a television series I’ve seen, certainly one devoted to a network medical procedural (in its early seasons, anyway). House remains one of my favourite (semi-guilty) pleasures, and while this episodic, narration-led effort by Tribble, highly impressive in its intimate familiarity with the show’s eight seasons, might not be ground-breaking in form or content, I found it extremely enjoyable and ridiculously watchable. Try the first part then see if you can resist the urge to keep on going; I certainly couldn’t.

Luís Azevedo

Filmmaker for hire. Maker of direct-to-video essays for Little White Lies , Mubi, Fandor, Amazon Prime &  Barbican

6ix9ine GOOBA except theres no music

Rob Lopez ( RØB )

Christopher Nolan | Doing It For Real

Julian Palmer (The Discarded Image)

Women Make Film

Mark Cousins ( watch trailer )

Cliff Booth Drives Home

Philip Brubaker

The Visual Architecture of Parasite

Thomas Flight

The Movies Behind Your Favourite GIF s

Leigh Singer (Little White Lies)

What Gordon Parks Saw

Evan Puschak (The Nerdwriter)

Filmmaker/writer

Expands the notion of what a video essay is and can be. Fascinating, even suspenseful. Blends performance in with videographic criticism in a way I had not seen before. Because of Binotto’s video, the way a critic can interact with a film is not what it was even a year ago.

From screening to (live) streaming

Davide Rapp & Andrea Dal Martello

An incredible marriage of past and present culture. Rapp & Martello have made a drop-dead hilarious critique of pandemic-era social media that is precisely funny because of how it recontextualises the movies that we grew up watching. It is an in-joke that richly rewards those who get it; how would these movies we loved in the past translate in today’s world?

Francisca Lila

A breathtaking, thorough taxonomy of flowers, plants and trees from the film canon. Lila’s brilliant, seamless editing makes the transition from Antichrist to Pather Panchali flow naturally, and part of the joy of this video essay is spotting and identifying the films she draws from.

In the Kitchen with Pedro Almodóvar

Luís Azevedo (Little White Lies)

Azevedo makes videos that are so sensuous and nimbly edited that he breathes new life into the clips on his timeline. Here his sensibility finds the perfect match: the kitchen. He finds captivating gestures from Almodóvar’s films and his speaking voice strikes just the right chord between his ideas and the visuals. Bravo.

Bad Vacations

The Criterion Channel

Criterion makes many great, concise supercuts to advertise the films on their streaming service. I wish they would credit the editors more generously, or at all, even. This is one that I have rewatched many times, because I love the arc; how a promising vacation can turn into a nightmare. This was a year full of miserable events that caused me great dismay, but somehow I delight in the pessimism of this teaser.

Change Needs to Come

Nelson carvajal.

Using simple, unadorned straight cuts set to an iconic song of the civil rights movement, Carvajal says what needed to be said. And oh, is it painful. A collection of cell phone imagery of black people murdered in contemporary life is juxtaposed with archival images dating back to slave times to show that in many ways, nothing has changed. We saw coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement throughout 2020, so I would be remiss not to include what I believe to be a very strong entry in this significant genre. I hate watching this video essay.

Video Artist and Founder of Free Cinema Now

Transcending Heidegger – The Cinema of Terrence Malick

Tom van der Linden (Like Stories of Old)

I was surprised by how moved I was by this video essay. Even with the voiceover element, van der Linden never hits the snooze button; his voice inquires, wonders and keeps insisting. By the end, I was floored by this work’s sincerity, the messaging, and its revelations about the human condition. Malick himself would be proud. It’s the best video essay of the year.

The Unloved – The Siege

Scout Tafoya (RogerEbert.com)

Part of the charm of Tafoya’s The Unloved series is that it gives us all a chance to beat our chests about our sentimental favorite films or guilty pleasure movies. When this entry on The Siege came out, it was a couple of months into the pandemic here in the States. I, like many people, was working from home, and felt really disconnected from the outside world. The way Tafloya injected socio-political urgency into his thesis for Zwick’s film, was like a bolt of electricity; it woke my senses, and reminded me of the very real world outside.

Wash Us In The Blood

Arthur Jafa

It was released as a music video but as soon as the appropriated images hit the screen and it was revealed to be created by video artist Arthur Jafa, it became, for me, a video essay. The striking juxtapositions Jafa creates between images and Kanye West’s music is thrilling. This is a vital work disguised as a music video. As I write this, it has 10,370,226 views on YouTube. That’s a really good turnout for a video essay if you ask me.

Andris Damburs

Cinefile, creator and moderator of 35 MM – A GROUP FOR CINEPHILES

Nothing at Stake

Everything is a remix: reality.

Kirby Ferguson

Aspect Ratio – The Changing Shape of Cinema

Leon Barnard

Physical Storytelling in Céline Sciamma’s Coming-Of-Age Trilogy

Why do you love cinema.

Ignacio Montalvo

Czechoslovak New Wave

Jonathan Keogh

Ian Danskin

Writer/editor/creator of YouTube channel Innuendo Studios .

Children of DOOM

Errant Signal

Errant Signal’s Children of DOOM is a dissection of the first-person shooter, wherein Chris Franklin takes what he considers to be the most important/interesting FPS from a given year and analyses it, planning to do one for every year of the genre’s existence. Chris has long been one of the most thoughtful voices in games criticism, and he’s always at his best discussing FPS . (His video on BioShock Infinite is what set me on the path to becoming a YouTuber.) In a year when watching political deep dives of the kind I typically make felt exhausting, this was my comfort food.

Coronavirus and America’s Death Cult

Carlos Maza

This is the year Carlos Maza – having previously been the main reason to subscribe to Vox’s YouTube – went solo and launched his own channel (he picked a heck of a year). He’s done excellent videos on the primaries and police brutality, but my fave is his video explaining the government’s response to the pandemic through the lens of neoliberalism and slowly devolving into a horror film. It does what all great political essays do: helps you understand a current event while also teaching you something fundamental that will help you understand much else about our world.

In Search of a Flat Earth

Dan Olson (Folding Ideas)

What at first appears to be a feature-length dissection of flat earth conspiracy theories telescopes out into the first comprehensive explanation of QA non I’ve seen, a distillation of the nature of conspiracy theories, a list of what other thinkers tend to overlook about conspiracists, and a sprinkling of love for the pursuit of knowledge. “Ultimately, it’s not about facts, it’s about power” is one of the most important takeaways of 2020.

Is Vine Cinema?

Kyle Kallgren (Brows Held High)

As he did two years ago with his video on bisexual lighting, Kyle Kallgren takes a seemingly innocuous subject – the life and death of Vine – and makes a video about EVERYTHING . About the essential units of filmmaking, about media that crosses social boundaries, about the speed of modern life and the formats best able to capture it, about race uprisings and cultural appropriation, about what happens when every so often The Youth are allowed to dictate culture. And all while montaging together his favorite Vines.

The $150,000 Banana

Sarah Urist Green (The Art Assignment)

Sarah Urist Green’s The Art Assignment didn’t end this year so much as go into low-power mode. The channel is still updated sporadically, but Sarah has refocused her attentions on other work. But, back in January – remember January? – she discussed Maurizio Cattelan’s then-trending art piece in which he duct taped a banana to a wall. Sarah employs her talent for taking strange, pretentious works on their own terms, digging into the banana’s surrounding contexts, the artist’s history, and the movement it’s part of, without ever claiming the work is ‘good’. This is her in her element.

we’re already ded || Zack Snyder, Part 2

Maggie Mae Fish

This year, the criminally under-appreciated Maggie Mae Fish started a series on the works of Zack Snyder, starting with a 15-minute look at how Snyder’s Superman contrasts with Supermen past, and then this 42-minute dive into how Snyder’s calcified, objectivist worldview manifests first in Dawn of the Dead and then across all his films.

Hamilton and the right mess it’s gotten me into

Grace Lee (What’s So Great About That?)

Grace’s dense and kaleidoscopic style proves a perfect match for the captivating yet self-contradictory musical that is Hamilton. The video goes back and forth over what makes Hamilton compulsively likable and also frustrating as heck, with every progressive idea undercut by something that seems to say the opposite, and every troublesome moment looking like it might be commentary on itself. Grace proves up to the task, providing not so much answers as a whole lot to think about.

Steven E. de Souza

It’s a Christmas movie. Bylines: @nytimes @LosAnglesTimes @FadeInMagazine @EmpireMagazine @SightSoundMagazine

How the Safdie Brothers Lie in Uncut Gems

Nehemiah Jordan (Behind the Curtain)

Never has a film essay had so disingenuous a title – but then N.T. Jordan’s essay is all about the art of misdirection. In truth, the brothers dissect as much as they dissemble, revealing more truths about the filmmaking process in 11 minutes than a semester of screenings. From the unanticipated dominoes that fall with casting changes (for instance, from a contemporary setting to a period one and back again), to unexpected sources of inspiration (spoiler alert: a colonoscopy) to the brutal marathon of 160 drafts over 10 years, the Safdies provide an unflinching portrait of the grind that is art.

The Most Important Filmmaker You Haven’t Heard Of

Jack Nugent (Now You See It)

Since silent days, women have been present in the editing suite, far too often unheralded (though not, of course, here). Starting with Margaret Booth in the 1930’s, then turning to Dede Allen and the late Sally Menke, Jack Nugent makes a strong case for these three artists as the midwives of modern film cutting. Both insightful and long overdue, Sight & Sound readers are urged to overlook the essay’s click-bait title… as they undoubtedly have.

Orson Wells a la Cinematheque Francaise

Pierre-André Boutang, Guy Seligmann

This month’s release of a major motion picture from an important filmmaker like David Fincher directly to a streaming platform sent a shock wave through Hollywood…. no, not the potential end of theatrical distribution as we know it, along with the shattering of the livelihood of exhibitioners and the shuttering of countless venues…I mean the impossible-to-shutter endless debate over Orson Welles: Boy wonder, or one-and-done-er? Found by Francois Thomas in the archives of the Cinematheque Francais only months ago, Welles gets another one hour 33 minutes with us… and we, with him.

Every Stormtrooper In Star Wars, Explained by Lucasfilm

Madlyn Burkert <@alohamaddy> and Doug Chiang

Call it classic or kitsch, revolutionary or rehash, but after 14 theatrical pictures and seven television series over 43 years for a total running time of let’s see, the original trilogy, six hours 20 minutes, then in chronological order Star Wars: Droids that’s 13 episodes x 23 minutes, plus 121 episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars… oh wait damn it, between the time I’m typing this and when it gets eyeballs, two more episodes of The Mandalorian will have been out, God knows what their running time will be, @jonfavs and @TaikaWaititi can’t even agree. Anyway, a long overdue taxonomy.

Steven Spielberg’s Use of Reflections

Shera Junushev

Like Bogart, this screenwriter is in a lonely place here with this one: I come to praise it, not critique it – but as observant as this essay is in recognising a signature Spielberg technique, in defining its effect as “allowing the audience to examine the details of a scene without losing connection to the character” it reduces psychology to geography. Rather, the subjective reflection shot’s true dynamic lies in flinging the filmgoer literally headlong into the protagonist’s shoes, bonding the viewer’s sense of self to the character with subliminal power.

The Irishman and the Death of the Gangster Film

In 1992 Francis Fukuyama declared The End of History. In 2020, Luis Azevedo is here to tell us that when we weren’t looking, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) declared the End of the Western, and in 2019, Martin Scorsese… hmm, how to best put this? Let’s just say that Luis thinks we got a real good genre here, it’d be a shame, a real shame if something happened to it…

Doctor Who and The Fourth Wall

Samuel Davis

From Justus D. Barnes’s gunshot in The Great Train Robbery in 1903 to Michael Caine’s seductive asides in Alfie (1966) to Joe Pesci bringing us full circle in Goodfellas (1990), breaking the fourth wall has been a key part of the motion pictures tool box. But those heralded films aren’t where we oh-so sophisticated Cineastes first encountered that jarring technique now, was it? And it wasn’t O Lucky Man, Amélie, or Fight Club, either. Come on, kiddies, fess up, you know the answer: here’s Samuel Davis to refresh your memory.

Monica Delgado

Peruvian film critic, director of Desistfilm.com

Presence: Call Me By Your Name

Fabian Broeker

I really liked this video: the search for a new topic in the treatment of a very hackneyed film.

On Contamination

Jessica McGoff

I felt interested about the political view of McGoff, because in this video she establishes correspondences between the filmmaker universe (animals and humans coexisting together) and social-environmental context.

Notorious Wavelengths

A Wave of the Hand. A way to the photo. An analysis of the use of the zoom in two opposite films, as a provocation. I never imagined watching this strange duel between Snow and Hitchcock.

Can any Johnny Guitar fan be indifferent to this?

Mariana Dianela Torres

There is a musical intention in this montage that attracts me a lot, that recovers a sensation of movement in the films of Chantal Akerman.

The Other Side of the Street

Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

I’m interested in the way in which Adrian and Cristina edit the images, research and voices, in an exact timing and leading us to subtle endings.

For some video essayists it’s a problem to work without complete films (for different restrictions). Kevin finished this challenge in a very playful and fresh way.

Will DiGravio

Host, The Video Essay Podcast ; Creator, Notes on Videographic Criticism ; Contributor, Film School Rejects

Follow the Cat

If there is one video essayist whose style and sensibility I most try to emulate in my own work, it is Johannes Binotto. His videos are rigorous and scholarly, yet deeply personal and emotional. In this video, like much of his work, Johannes turns his cinephilia into a shove which, like Lisa Fremont, he uses to dig deeper and deeper into the fabric of Rear Window. Follow the Cat gives us a new way of understanding familiar images, and thus gets at the heart of what videographic criticism is and what it can do and be.

Jazmin Jones

I think about Unlocked by video artist Jazmin Jones often. In an interview, Jones described the way she shifted the focus of the appropriated videos away from the white people at the centre: “It was a matter of zooming in… trying to reframe so that we’re really focusing on the pleasure and the experience of the black fems.” Jazmin may not have set out to make a ‘video essay’ when she created Unlocked, but the way she manipulates the footage is among the most powerful examples of the form I have seen.

cops ordering food

Manny Fidel

I can’t do justice to Manny’s video in 100 words. It’s hilarious and deeply insightful. I also love his follow-up tweet: “I made this in like four mins do NOT comment on its quality.” Manny’s video was made three weeks after the murder of George Floyd, at a time when a narrative emerged in the United States that police officers were somehow the real victims in society. The video makes a mockery of that absurd notion and, in the process, shows that a definition of ‘quality’ as it relates to videographic criticism is far more nuanced than one might think.

My First Film

Zia Anger ( watch trailer )

My First Film debuted in 2019 as a live film performance; an innovative desktop documentary that earned high praise in last year’s poll. Unable to perform in person this year, Anger began streaming live performances throughout the spring. The work continued to break ground and morphed into something new, a film that reflected Anger’s own pandemic experience. During the performance I saw, Anger texted her dad to say she loved him. Watching “My First Film” during such frightening times was a cathartic experience, one that made me briefly feel like I was back at the movies among friends and strangers.

Indy Vinyl: Records in American Independent Cinema: 1987 to 2018

Ian Garwood

Another ground-breaking work this year came in the form of Ian Garwood’s Indy Vinyl: Records in American Independent Cinema: 1987 to 2018, a project that features a range of video essays and written works. One aspect of video essay-making that often gets overlooked is the amount of time dedicated to making each and every video. Ian’s project, both in size and scope, but also given the fact that he released parts of this project as they were finished, beautifully captures the labor of love that is video-essay making, all while pushing the boundaries of what the form can be.

Tear away Turn back Breathe

Martina Probst and Chantal Hann

Over the past nine months, I have tried to relive my favourite pre-pandemic moviegoing experiences through video essays. This video by Martina Probst and Chantal Hann, two students at the Lucerne School of Art and Design, is among the finest analyses of Portrait of a Lady on Fire I have seen. But what I find so compelling about their essay is their willingness to at times forgo images entirely and embrace a blank canvas: the black screen. Video essayists often feel the need to fill every second with images. Perhaps we should allow our work to, like Marianne, breathe.

It’s Bad Luck to Compare Hands

Alex Slentz

Meshes of the Afternoon is one of those films that I rewatch all the time, just to try and understand how it works; how it was assembled. I feel the same way about Alex Slentz’s video, which blends together footage from Maya Deren’s film, Persona, and Un Chien Andalou. Similar to the video by Probst and Hann, I am inspired by the way Sletz allows us to see the canvas on which the video essay was created. The fluid movements of the images and their interactions with one another blend together in a beautiful collage and insightful analysis.

Video Essayist and Filmmaker

How Edgar Wright Uses Sound

Sound tends to be an underrepresented subject in the world of video essays. Julian’s essay mimics Edgar Wright’s editing and sound design to move effortlessly between his films, showcasing Wright’s unique approach to sound.

The Strange Reality of Roller Coaster Tycoon

Jacob Geller

Jacob Geller expertly ties together internet culture, video game design, and physics in this profound examination of the existential unease that can be found in a theme park simulation game from 1999.

Lies of Heroism – Redefining the Anti-War Film by Tom van der Linden (Like Stories of Old)

Weaving together examples from 49 films during the course of this nearly feature-length video essay, Tom thoughtfully and thoroughly examines depictions of war in cinema and whether it’s truly possible to make an anti-war film.

Dinner with Brad Pitt

Video essays can also just be a lot of fun. I’m not sure who had more fun, Luís Azevedo sitting down to edit this video, or Brad Pitt sitting down to dinner in all these scenes.

Researcher and filmmaker

The Viewing Booth

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz ( watch trailer )

An incredibly careful and thorough examination of the spectatorial mechanisms of two protagonists (a filmed spectator, and the filmmaker who is filming her) that exposes how much our beliefs and ideological convictions determine how we make sense of online images. Though rather pessimistic in its conclusion (no image can change a person’s political opinions – so long for a century-long history of activist media and political filmmaking), the film advocates convincingly for the political power of building respectful interpersonal relationships with our political opponents, and for the potential of images to serve as the basis for such conversations.

Il n’y aura plus de nuit

Eléonore Weber ( watch trailer )

This essay film looks at thermal imagery produced by helicopter pilots in a war context. We hear only one voice, but the words it speaks contain the gazes of many: from the pilots themselves, to the judges in military courts in charge of examining these images to determine retrospectively the legitimacy of the pilots’ decisions to kill, to the filmmaker who questions her mixed fascination for these images, to our own uncertainty about what these images expect from us – their probably unwanted, surplus witnesses.

On Contamination and My Mulholland

I equally love these two videos by Jessica McGoff. Re-watching On Contamination at the end of this year of sanitary crisis gives the video an uncanny, definitely prescient quality, but it is a great work independently from its unfortunate topicality. Like My Mulholland (which McGoff produced in the context of the video essay series Once Upon a Screen ), On Contamination explores an intimate form of narration in which the discussed film becomes not so much the limiting frame of the essay, but the substrate from which it grows in unexpected directions.

Elie Ga ( watch excerpt )

This essay – very much like my other picks – proposes a very personal, partly autobiographical, partly fictional narration, loosely based on a collection of images figuring objects found by ‘beachcombers’. Images come in waves onto the filmmaker’s table, who tentatively combines them into spatial arrangements and explorative superpositions, until the surf of the narration prompts their replacement with other images – some we discover, some we see again and again, constantly re-invested with new meanings.

I know very few video essayists who are willing to implicate themselves as much in their videos as Binotto does in this performative, wistfully celebratory and intensely personal short video piece. I admire the growing abstraction of Binotto’s work (such as in his video Trace , another strong candidate for this poll) for it opens up the possibility of unexpected, sensual engagements with the films with which it dialogues. These are video essays where images burgeon with news meanings and unlikely sensations, rather than being pinned down or constricted by the analysis.

Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed

This year I’ve seen a number of video essays reflecting on images of migrants on their way to Europe, and this film is by far the one I found the most inspiring. It recalls Philip Scheffner’s Havarie in its focus on a single, arguably illegible image, and its investment of the soundtrack as the lieu of meaning production. But the perspective is reversed: Havarie watched a ship sink from afar, Purple Sea plunges us in the water. The presentness of the image serves as the loam from which the story unfolds, made of the narrator’s uncertain memories and hopes.

Wild Heart 1981 / 2020

Zach Dorn ( watch excerpt )

From randomly filming contemporary online media flows to carefully re-animating on paper a decades-old improvised piece of footage (that was later uploaded to YouTube), this short essay deploys an impressively wide, and very personal narrative arc. The diversity of visual techniques that are employed in this virtuoso single-shot speaks to Dorn’s attempts to grasp his digital object and materialise it in the space of his home – a gesture that is fascinatingly articulated as one of self-care and compensation for the anxieties triggered by contemporary online media.

Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow

Desegregating the Two Shot: The Use of the Frame in The Defiant Ones (1958)

Henry Rownd

This finely detailed audiovisual commentary operates in the best tradition of close mise-en-scène analysis – a surprisingly marginal genre in the academic video essay world. Rownd demonstrates astutely how the image construction of the film tells a nuanced and complex story about race and space in the Civil Rights era, even as the surface narrative hammers home a more heavy-handed message.

Lisa Hanawalt: Being Human by Being Animal

This year I taught a dedicated video essay course for the first time in a while and Grace Lee was the go-to for examples of incredibly smart, quick-witted, well-researched and audiovisually engaging work. Lee’s awareness of the possibilities of animation shines through in this video, an awareness developed through both her critical and filmmaking practice.

Satis House

As is often the case with Catherine Grant’s work, Satis House is an exemplary act of collaboration. Firstly, it invites collaboration from the viewer by giving them more and more visual information to compare, without authorial commentary, as the video proceeds. Secondly, Grant’s accompanying writing refines and deepens the viewing experience, collaborating with it rather than simply describing it. Finally, the collaboration through writing is extended by the inclusion of a reflective piece by the cultural historian Lynda Nead, whose thinking about Great Expectations inspired the video in the first place.

My Mulholland

From my admittedly partial perspective, skewed towards video essays published in academic journals, a turn to the overtly personal seemed evident in a number of examples this year. Maybe it was fitting, then, that the year closed with the publication of the Once Upon a Screen collection in the Cine-Files, where video essayists reflected on formative film-viewing experiences. I’ve had a little more time to watch and think about Jessica McGoff’s contribution than the others, and it’s a wonderful reflection on the allure and perils of online media consumption, funnelled through a memorable first encounter with Mulholland Drive.

”Who Ever Heard…?”

Like Catherine Grant’s Satis House, Payne’s video uses an additive multi-screen compositional process that draws attention to repetitions in the source material – in this case a scene from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Payne’s approach is more overtly manipulative than Grant’s, repeating each shot from the scene to create a visual and aural montage that builds then recedes in intensity. The looping effect of the soundtrack, in particular, is mesmerising.

The Before Sunrise Waltz

This was the act of virtual film tourism I needed in the early months of lockdown. By orchestrating a Google Earth tour of the locations visited in Before Sunrise, Stone re-envisages the film from a panoramic perspective, thereby offering a completely different take on the original, which stays determinedly tied to Jesse and Celine’s ground-level progression through Vienna’s streets.

A Machine for Viewing

Richard Misek, Oscar Raby, Charlie Shackleton

Of course it’s a shame that the pandemic put a (temporary?) stop to the VR -video essay roadshow envisaged as part of Machine for Viewing, but the three videos published in NECSUS demonstrate that the project’s potential has already been realised. Whilst the demonstration of the technology is impressive, I related most to the videos’ use of VR to reflect on a traditional 2-D cinema-going experience. Who would have thought that the sight of a packed auditorium, witnessing the live VR presentation and commentary at the Sundance Festival, would now seem so poignant?

Hailey Gavin

Video essay creator

Yorgos Lanthimos’s Absurd Worlds

This is an excellent articulation of the questions Lanthimos asks and the visual and structural tools he employs. This is a must-watch for anyone who loved Nimic and conveys the power of shorts to reframe our understanding of auteurs’ work.

How Portraits Lie – What to be aware of in your portrait photography

Jamie Windsor

I love this clear exploration of a nuanced topic, supplemented by beautiful motion graphics and fluid editing.

This piece illustrates the sometimes inextricable nature of nostalgia and trauma. I also loved the way the essay draws points of connection between media of different formats from different times.

Audiovisual essayist and Professor of Film at the University of Reading.

Slap That Bass Zoomed

The elephant man’s sound, tracked., the original ending: the last acts of black horror heroes.

Cydnii Wilde Harris

Music and Point of View in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Patrick Keating

Once Upon a Screen: Explosive Paradox

Video essayist; founding co-editor of [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies ; Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and elected member of Academia Europea. Currently completing https:screenstudies.video

One of my all-time favourite videographic works by foundational artist and essayist Lee, or indeed by anyone. Part of a brilliant project recently published in issue 15 of the Cine-Files in the collection Once Upon a Screen , commissioned and curated by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer.

Another astonishing work by one of the most innovative and significant of video essayists. Published online in December 2020, this video also deservedly garnered huge festival success, screening in competition at the Marseilles Festival of Documentary Film as well as at the Festival dei Popoli, the Kasseler Dokfest and the festival Caminhos do Cinema Português.

One of my all-time favourite pieces that we have published at [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Studies this last (or any) year. A wonderfully ambitious exploration of the first decade of stabiliser technologies and techniques. In surveying the industrial histories of two competing devices, the Steadicam and the obsolete Panaglide, Bird demonstrates, powerfully and movingly, how “now codified norms of craft labour practice around stabiliser’s aesthetic and generic forms emerged amongst a diverse range of media and eclectic techniques”.

Maryam Tafakory ( read synopsis )

I love Tafakory’s essay films and video essays, and this brilliant piece by her was one of the excellent new series of commissioned essays on Asian cinema, Monographs by the Asian Film Archive ( AFA ).

”Drawing upon histories and archives, both personal and regional, these works reveal new vistas of inquiry; ruminations that evince the essayists’ personal connections to [Asian] cinema, made more poignant by the fact that they were created during various states of isolation and solitude.”

The series had its world premiere at the Dharamshala International Film Festival held online from 29 October to 4 November 2020.

The latest work by hugely talented video essayist and film McGoff; her video was also part of the high quality collection Once Upon a Screen .

One of an outstanding collection of audiovisual essays devoted to explorations of gesture published in NECSUS : European Journal of Media Studies , curated by the wonderful video essayist and scholar Tracy Cox-Stanton, in December 2019. This video was also added to the essential Video Essay Podcast Black Lives Matter video essay playlist , curated by Cydnii Wilde Harris, Kevin B Lee and The Video Essay Podcast founder and host Will DiGravio.

Indy Vinyl, Interrupted

This video, published in 2020, is the tip of the amazing videographic iceberg that is Garwood’s work on his hugely original videographic/monographic project Indy Vinyl, as set out here and here .

Reader in Film and Sonic Arts, Liverpool John Moores University.

This audiovisual essay marries form and content in such an affecting manner that I was completely drawn into the essayist’s world. The universality of the space that Lee re-enacts/re-presents urged me to think back to the complexity of early childhood memories. The camera shot and movement choices coupled with the voice (which is sometimes masked) allows for an intimate story that perfectly reflects this particular moment and the trauma of early childhood.

If I could have made any other audiovisual essay, I wish it could have been this one! I love everything about it, from the voiceover, with its centrality of the cat, to the essayist’s own cat watching the screen. It is beautifully paced and offers an insightful point of entry to Hitchcock’s camera moves. It prompts a personal way into questioning cinematic spectatorship and image-making, and draws from an array of interesting representations of cats in cinema.

This audiovisual essay makes me think and feel differently about camera movement in cinema. It details a rich history drawing from technical manuals, instructional videos, film tests and experiments and other archival material to present an embodied argument that allows me to feel the moves of the Steadicam/Panaglide operator(s). The extent of the research is significant, but this is not merely a dissemination of research – the entire essay builds movement into its shape and form. It is truly inspiring work!

Forensickness is a longer audiovisual essay/experimental film that considers Chris Kennedy’s film, Watching the Detectives. Much like Galibert-Laîné’s earlier work, it deconstructs Kennedy’s film, goes to the online archive of material (this time on Reddit) to consider both the news footage circulating around the Boston Marathon bomb attack in 2013 and the Hollywood depiction of these events. This work is about how we see, how we consume images, and how we think about and through images.

McGoff’s My Mullholland is a poignant consideration of traumatic film viewing. The desktop format is most appropriate for examining the online consumption of film, and here the essayist’s own adventures on the internet and into the cinema of David Lynch are richly depicted through this approach. The audiovisual essay details some darker areas of the internet whilst also re-presenting the edgier moments of Lynch’s, Mulholland Drive. It is often fun and playful and the use of text is brilliantly deployed.

Garwood has had a prolific year creating audiovisual essays and has made a number that are inspired by the Zoom app as an aesthetic device, reflecting these recent months and how we have been collectively engaging online. He has created a showcase of this work which is available to audioview here . In a year where Black Lives Matter is at the forefront of political discussion, “Slap That Bass Zoomed” offers a timely de-centring of the white appropriator, instead offering an array of Black artists (named and unnamed) to take their rightful place onscreen.

Paris Bagdad: Fantasies of America(na) in German-American Cinema

Evelyn Kreutzer

Paris Bagdad: Fantasies of America(na) in German-American Cinema offers a personal route through Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984) and Baghdad Café (Percy Adlon, 1987). This essayistic approach includes the use of superimposition, which is beautifully rendered and speaks to the sense of place and wanderlust that Kreutzer narrates her way through. This feels like a logical follow on from her earlier inspired work on German cinema, Berlin Moves (2017).

Chiara Grizzaffi

Postdoctoral Fellow at IULM University – co-editor of [in]Transition

MADELEINE / JUDY

The philosophy of horror: a symphony of film theory.

Péter Lichter, Bori Máté ( watch trailer )

Once Upon a Screen: Titanic

Victoria Wegner

Safe Bodies, Safe Environment: The Atmosphere of Todd Haynes’s Safe (1995)

Kelsey Draper

Film scholar and video essayist

That she was able to commute the cinematic trauma of Lynch’s work to the universal trauma of growing up during the Wild West years of the internet was a sublime insight. From the choice to take her audience on a journey through her desktop, to her recreations of jump scares and the IMD b message boards, this piece resonated with me on so many levels.

It’s one thing to understand that your colleague is brilliant. It is another experience entirely to watch an artist, independent of your relationship to them, so handedly exceed their own boundaries. Kevin’s piece on his childhood experiences with the film Platoon are an example of the very power of cinema to shape our relationship with the world, and the world’s relationship with us. Include that footage, and his deeply personal voiceover all combine to create an experience of childhood trauma so visceral, that I haven’t just gained new insight on the war epic itself.

This piece redefined what I believed to be the parameters of the video essay. By making manifest his own desire to enter a film, Joannes transcends the medium technically, and does so by seamlessly immeshing his own visuals, music, and handwriting into the groundbreaking work, Freak Orlando. He uses the style of his piece to supplement both that of the existing property and what the essayist has to say about it. Johannes didn’t just redefine how I’d like to create video essays. He redefined the limitations of how I can enter a film itself.

The greater focus of Dan’s essay, distilled what I’ve found so troubling about conspiracy theories, from the Illuminati to QA non, and how more often than not, their unstated purpose is to oppose my very existence. By laying bare the historical context of these theories and their creators, Dan articulated the harm these theories stand to enact, and makes them far less easy to laugh off.

As far as works responding to or including elements of our current reality, Ian’s use of Zoom is perhaps one of the most hopeful. This may also be a standout for how it combines both the Zoom revolution with the Racial Equity revolution, and may be one of the most effective ways I’ve seen the Zoom framework employed. Add to that, the editing is impeccably timed, and I left the video with a healthy list of performers to whom I was newly introduced.

Coco’s Feel-Good Oppression

Eliquorice’s video essay on Coco was my gateway drug to the rest of his works. His analysis of the film’s depiction of immigration within the narrative is poignant, but his comparisons between the failings of the immigration system in Disney’s magical realm to the failings of the system in our reality make a compelling case for how political ideology is communicated in family films. The inclusion of his own experiences with the immigration system come at just the right moment, thereby narrativising his analysis, while giving a human face to an issue often overshadowed by the enormity of the system.

The Satirical Resurgence of Reefer Madness

Yhara’s recent video essay on Reefer Madness delves into the historical context that lead to the film, its reception upon release, and its place in the canon of midnight features. Her candour, humour, and personality transcend what could have been a simple history lesson into an engaging conversation about the mutability of everything from social attitudes about cannabis to the constantly shifting legacy of a specific film alongside those attitudes. It’s Yhara’s deft balance of humour and context that reveals to her audience the absurdity that is racial stereotyping and discrimination.

Film scholar, video essayist, animation artist

When was the last time I found myself enjoying a supercut for almost seven minutes? Conforme has a relentless urgency thanks in large part to the driving score by Vaude herself. For me, it captures that contradictory state of frantic stasis that was and is 2020.

Johannes Binotto keeps exploring the possibilities of the video essay in all kinds of directions sidestepping technological wizardry by relying on household items. In Trace he creates tactile sensations from a single film still on a tablet. Seeing it again now, I wonder if it was about that one question all along: what does physical contact feel like?

With her well paced self-reflective long form essays, Chloé Galibert-Laîné has more than once managed to entice me into agreeing then disagreeing with her narration before finally realising that I had been too immersed to “pay attention to that woman behind the curtain”, so to speak.

With his entry in the Once Upon a Screen collection, Kevin B. Lee confirms that he is an incredible storyteller. Explosive Paradox looks deceivingly simple, but works on so many levels. Most importantly, I found it a deeply moving experience.

Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist

Curated by Cydnii Wilde Harris. Kevin B. Lee and Will DiGravio

As our field becomes ever wider, curated lists have become crucial to make sure that notable video essays and voices do not go unnoticed. Among them, the Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist is an essential contribution, has a clear-cut profile and is co-organised by three widely connected practitioners.

Nehemiah Jordan

Creator of Behind the Curtain , an online community of screenwriters

The Social Network – Ten Years Later

The Royal Ocean Film Society

The reason why I chose this was primarily its experimental form. Using the topic of Facebook and social media, Andrew Saladino (creator) builds the entire video essay off of the Facebook feed – scrolling from clip to graphic to clip. Something to watch for its inventiveness.

Brave was a Disappointment

This video does a great job of walking through the origins of making this film, breaking down how it’s structured, and finally, how it could’ve been rewritten to be stronger. A long video, but extremely entertaining and well-organised.

The Psycho Chord – Consonance vs Dissonance

Listening In

This channel takes a deep look into an unexplored section of filmmaking: the sound. Specifically, the music and how it’s an integral part of the storytelling. Also, the production quality of these videos are incredibly high.

How Martin Scorsese Integrates The Shadow: A Jungian Practice

Jillian Snead (Jilloms)

A deep but practical analysis of the Shadow, using examples from Martin Scorsese’s filmography to explore how it’s been utilised in different characters. What’s so great here is that she translates all of the analysis into practical application for ourselves. How does one begin integrating their own Shadow into their lives? This video gives you the steps.

Christian Keathley

Professor of Film & Media Culture, Middlebury College; Founding co-editor of [in]Transition

Santa y Teresa

Michelle Farrell

Tarkovsky’s Napes

Pavel Tavares

Miklós Kiss

Associate Prof. in Audiovisual Arts and Cognition at University of Groningen, NL /co-author of Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

One of the best audiovisual research essays of the year, through its presented information (a rich exploration of the first decade of film stabiliser technologies and techniques) and quality of presentation (technical skill, soundtrack, use of split-screen, etc.).

All Is Not Lost

Amy Rachlin

The video that managed to squeeze all the suspense of living in isolation during a pandemic AND one of the most goose-bumpy scenes of my favourite TV series into less than four minutes. Bonus: it’s also funny.

Davide Rapp and Andrea Dal Martello

Famous film scenes appear in TikToks, Skype calls, distance learning and online conferences. Another COVID -19 cinephile fun.

If you want to watch only one video about GIF s, it should be this one. [insert Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson nodding meme.]

Repeating Terror: Contemplating Death in Amat Escalante’s Heli (2013)

Niamh Thornton

A calm but powerful side-by-side reflection on the ethics of the slow depiction of hyper-realist violence in Amat Escalante’s 2013 Heli, using repetition and variation of the ‘same’ scene. A brilliant demonstration of the potentiality of videographic criticism.

“Parasites move from animal to human. Are we the parasites or the hosts?” An eerily prophetic video ‘on contamination’ (a response to Janis Rafa’s KALA AZAR ), made for the Critics’ Choice panel of the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam – thus released just weeks before the COVID -19 virus turned into a pandemic.

Contagion – Willy and Rutty

Luca Gentile, Sasha Quinlan Narciso, Romy Weggeman, Sam Klement

A naughty little video made by my Videographic Criticism students at the University of Groningen, mixing Soderbergh’s Contagion with the TV speeches of the Dutch king and prime minister during the first wave of COVID -19. It’s in Dutch, but you’ll get the point without understanding the language.

Jaap Kooijman

Associate Professor Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Explosive Paradox undoubtedly is one of the most personal and moving audiovisual essays that I have after watched, and at the same time presents a convincing criticism of the way Hollywood glorifies violence, not only in films themselves, but also in the way these films are celebrated by film critics and Academy Awards. The essay contrasts the mundaneness of the cinema-turned-liquor-store where Lee first saw the film, back in the 1980s, and the seriousness of the trauma he experienced when confronted with this racially motivated violence. A wonderful piece of videographic criticism and art.

Mastering Dialogue: American Crime

Andreas Halskov and Previously on Perry Mason

Henrik Højer

I select these two audiovisual essays together, because they are the first two of a new series by the Danish 16:9 film journal which is based on a very specific parameter, a constraint in length. The audiovisual essays are 169 seconds (thus 2:49 minutes) long and described by the journal as ‘condensed audiovisual breakdowns’. Both take a US American television series as case study. The constraint in length forces the authors to focus on one specific element and to come straight to the point. Viewers are reminded of the short length as the seconds literally tick away.

Although I find the arguments of both audiovisual essays on, respectively, American Crime and Perry Mason, compelling and convincing, I am most fascinated by their shared form and how a relatively arbitrary constraint in length succeeds in condensing academic arguments about US American television into very seductive bites of television studies knowledge.

Days of Linda

One does not have to be familiar with Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978) to make sense of Days of Linda, a tribute to the actress Linda Manz, whose first film role was playing Linda. The audiovisual essay highlights Manz’s ‘central authorial contributions’ by combining Manz’s voiceover with footage from the film presented in split screen, with shots of a non-speaking Linda on the left and other scenes (some including Linda) on the right. In this way, character Linda does not only get a voice through actress Linda, but her original marginalised and silenced role is emphasised as well.

Adjunct lecturer and video essayist, Northwestern University

This year I was so short on time that I missed out on seeing a lot of videographic work, so even more than in other years, my suggestions are highly subjective. I picked three videos whose originality and/or currentness caught my attention this year.

Katie Bird’s video essay on early stabilisation technologies is a marvellously executed demonstration of videographic scholarship’s ability to simultaneously communicate historical film scholarship and evoke aesthetic, phenomenological experiences. Reflecting upon an under-researched, complex topic in a very accessible (and fun!) way, it’s also a perfect video essay to show in film classes.

Who Ever Heard…?

Matthew Thomas Payne

Payne’s short and playful videographic engagement with a single scene from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance spoke to me because of its marvellous use of rhythm, repetition, and sonic layering. As a sound scholar, I often ponder on the possibilities and limitations of videographic methods to investigate and/or express one’s ideas via sound. Payne’s video certainly does both.

Before the End

Before the End is an interesting case in terms of its circulation and 2020-ness (rather than conceptual or formal novelty). It’s a very simple, short video that uses the basic principles of editing and the Kuleshov effect to join excerpts from separate zoom interviews with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (without the audio) to suggest a narrative sequel to the Before film series. Stone’s video went viral, eventually reaching way more viewers than the original interviews had. It speaks to various intersecting technological, narrative, and communicative desires of this particular moment.

Video essayist

What Do I Want?

This video makes great use of the looping format of social media video and, originating from TikTok, an exciting addition to the ever-monstrously-expanding field of video essay.

For All Mankind: Is The Moon Landing Cinema?

Kyle Kallgren

I mean, if your video essay doesn’t have lego recreations of your subject matter… what are you even doing here? Get out of my house!

Sorry to Bother You – You can’t just tame people

Curio (Eric Sophia and Natalie)

Curio has made so many amazingly ambitious essays this year, but I especially liked this more low key video on white supremacy and capitalism in Sorry To Bother You which people may have missed amidst the excellent creative flair of their higher profile videos.

I’m sure this will be on many lists this year, but Kevin continues to be the most inventive, versatile video essayist out there and… come on… I couldn’t NOT mention this video (as well as the Once Upon a Screen project in general).

We Are Here Because of Those That Are Not

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

I’m maybe stretching the definition of video essay more than I ever have but if there isn’t at least one pick on a list that makes you think “come on now, this is just taking the piss” then is it even a Sight & Sound video essay poll list? This interactive archive of black trans experiences may be neither strictly video nor essay, but it’s one of the most important, creative and emotional things I saw this year. It’s got audio, it’s got visuals and it’s going on the list!

Filmmaker, Director of the first Masters program for Video Essays and Desktop Documentaries (at Merz Akademie)

Purple Sea and Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea: 28 October 2015

Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed, Forensic Architecture

These are separate works, but together they encompass the vast range of possibilities that video essays can have in using the same source material. Explanatory in the best sense, Forensic Architecture uses Alzakout’s footage as part of a potent account of a disastrous shipwreck. Alzakout takes her footage in the opposite direction, with a deep exploration into the thoughts and experiences the footage does not reveal. In doing so the film offers a strong rebuke to the instrumentalisation that dominates image discourse.

More about Purple Sea can be found here .

Originally a VR video essay performed live at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, this virtual exploration of the cinematic experience is all the more poignant in a year in which cinemas face an existential crisis and so much of daily life has migrated to a digital simulacrum of itself. Along with Zia Anger’s live online performances of My First Film, it points to exciting new directions for the video essay – interactive and in real time.

Various Creators with the Asian Film Archive (detailed info here )

I should acknowledge that I served as editorial consultant on this, but there is simply no precedent for this massive series of video essays on Asian cinema commissioned by the Asian Film Archive in Singapore, involving an impressive roster of filmmakers, moving image artists and scholars. They premiered last month at the Dharamshala International Film Festival and will circulate over the coming months. I am especially enamoured of Ghosts Like Us by Riar Rizaldi, Spirit Film by Raya Martin, and Irani Bag by Maryam Tafakory.

The most thoroughly and impressively researched academic video essay I’ve seen this year, bringing a heightened and expanded awareness of the physical labor that goes into a shot and how different approaches to technology and craft yield different effects of cinematic embodiment. A video essay that deepens one’s appreciation for the bodily experience of film viewing and filmmaking alike.

Also: Sonic Chronicle Post Sound by Cormac Donnelly.

An experiment in watching propaganda leads to a wholesale reassessment of the assumptions behind progressive documentary filmmaking. A brave self-critique of one’s longstanding practices and ideals in the face of an emerging set of sobering realities.

See also: Indy Vinyl, Interrupted by Ian Garwood.

Part of the Once Upon a Screen series of video essays on childhood film viewing-as-trauma, published on the Cine-Files Journal – this particular entry brings the topic out of the past tense with an exceptional liveness and presence. As my other selections would attest, questions of spectatorship and an expanded cultural and technological framework for understanding cinema are the foci for the video essays that I find most exciting right now. This desktop documentary engages all those themes brilliantly.

Real Talk: Is Breadtube Discussing Race ‘Right’?

Professor Flowers

Working on the Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist was among the most significant experiences of the year for me, and through it I learned about several fantastic video essayists working in academia, YouTube and social media. I found especially noteworthy this careful consideration of the performativity of progressive racial politics on YouTube.

Eric Sophia McAllister

Video essayist working on YouTube covering media and cultural analysis, with a particular political focus on queer and leftist topics

I have to get this pick up front because it is the single greatest piece of video essay/documentary content on YouTube, not just this year. Olson has raised the bar absurdly high with this moving, insightful, well-researched, funny, well-shot and ideologically devastating look into the worlds of internet conspiracy theory. This isn’t just a YouTube video about conspiracy theorists, it is a phenomenology. What is always impressive about Dan Olson is how well he structures information for maximum impact, and the “mid point twist” of this video hits like an atom bomb.

A Prison of Our Own Loneliness

Sarah Zedig (let’s talk about stuff.)

This piece subverts the oft-derided talking head form of the YouTube video essay by having Sarah sit staring into the camera NOT talking while her pre-recorded voice-over delivers this essay about the pandemic, loneliness, nations, world politics and media, culminating in a silent scream and then breakdown into tears that is simply one of the most moving things I have ever seen on the platform. By the end of watching this you definitely will feel the catharsis of letting everything out with a ‘good old cry’, but most likely because you will actually cry.

Tyr & Grem (Pamphleteer)

It’s best to acknowledge up front that this video is aping off the style of a video that I made, simply because I want to say that I see how self-serving it might appear to select it but I had to anyway, because this video is simply so so SO good. Tyr & Grem had a double realisation earlier this year when Tyr came out as a trans woman and Grem realised they were, and always had been, a lesbian. This video takes the form of a “Martian Poem” inspired by Alan Moore’s Watchmen and will knock your socks off.

The Ideology of Apocalypse

Jack has been at the top of his game as a media analysis and political commentary essayist for a while – from his ‘Copaganda’ trilogy about police movies to his evolving series on cartoon animals as race metaphor and all the inherent problems therein – but this masterwork taking a broad survey across apocalyptic fiction to study its cultural and ideological trends is the tippy top of the tippy top. Not to mention that in the year of our Lord 2020 the cultural question of how we perceive and process the apocalypse seems uncomfortably relevant.

Twitter and Empathy

In the world of liberal and progressive politics, the notion of ‘empathy’ is often invoked as a virtue, but this essay is really special for questioning what we actually mean when we talk about empathy. Big Joel knocks it out of the park by dissecting the way we evoke this concept and the revelation that it’s actually several different, intersecting and nebulous concepts being crammed under the one umbrella.

Oblivion &  Women

Lilly (mothcub)

Did you know feminism makes games more fun, not less? Lilly knows this. While her channel doesn’t usually engage in media analysis or produce video essays, this was still one of my favourite media analysis essays this year. Lilly takes us on a journey through a quest in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion and how it seemingly for no reason at all pulls the rug out from under itself and makes the quest less fun, when the obvious answer to any feminist gamer chad would be to go the other way entirely.

The Beginner’s Guide: This Is Not For You

Grace’s essays are always stunningly good. Shockingly good. Upsettingly good. Their essays are sharp, funny, insightful, well researched and paced so well that at the end of a ten-minute What’s So Great About That video I feel like I’ve just watched an hour, but in the best possible way. To paraphrase my esteemed colleague in political commentary, Mr. Rubin, Grace’s videos put my brain in recovery mode from all the high-level important ideas. This particular essay takes a hard look at the cultural, social, and personal implications of interpretation and when and how we should and shouldn’t do it.

Critical writer and video essayist

Days Passed: Lee Kang-Sheng Through the Eyes of Tsai Ming-Liang

Michelle Cho

Once Upon a Screen: On Psycho and The Witches

Daniel mcilwraith.

Video essayist and video editor

Blissfully Between Binaries with Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Carlos natálio.

Film Teacher and Researcher at Católica University (O Porto); Film Programmer at IndieLisboa Film Festival; Film Critic at À pala de Walsh website

One of the reasons why Kevin B. Lee’s work is ground-breaking in video essays because his imagination is always one step ahead. He is constantly reminding us that working with the body of cinema is working with your memories and affections, and circumventing material limitations. Here, childhood cinema is projected on a shadowy wall of a former movie theatre, Platoon is remembered between leaves and trees’ reflections. Violence of the past, violence of the present. An essay about memory and the permanence of racism. Video essays are tools to reedit the present.

Forensickness is a real detective story. Chloé understands the whodunnit potential of the desktop film form and the intellectual investigation of a visual construction. She takes us by the end through her own investigation processes, while making us realise that there are only combinations, versions of the truth. We’ve passed the moment where critical theory intellectuals would point out the ‘spectacle’ in images. At the moment, the faking and ‘unfaking’ of images is a two-way business, intellectuals go along with pastors and internet police works share regards with so-called police experts.

Some Visual Thoughts About Perceptions in Rebecca

Ricardo Vieira Lisboa

Lisboa is a very ironic and shrewd video essayist. Here he is fooling around with Hitchcock’s Rebecca, using cinema’s toolbox of directors and works – Kiarostami’s Copie Conforme, Lang’s Secret Behind the Door, Godard’s Adieu au Language, Cláudia Varejão’s No Escuro do Cinema Descalço os Sapatos. The essay dismantles Rebecca’s work from the themes of signature, drop/marriage, sea/see, idealisation, signature appropriation. In Lisboa’s works always expect the unexpectable: a laugh or an unhappy emoticon, next to a brilliant capacity for film analysis.

In Memoriam

Lucía Alonso Santos

2020 is a year of confinement, although we are able to film inside our homes, inside our heads, and travel virtually. In this honest video essay, Lucía Santos is ‘verifying’ what she knew of Thailand through Apichatpong’s films using Google Street Views. Memories of something not happening as she anticipates Memoria by the Thai director. In what way do the images we have access to replace the cinematic experiences we might have?

L’Assassinat Kennedy au cinéma

Editing together various films and also archive footage, this video essay signals the assassination of John F. Kennedy 57 years ago. More than just documenting and representing the tragic event, Luc Lagier aims at expanding our perception by combining several other films that confuse, momentarily, our perception and feelings towards the event. Suspense without graphic violence is also at play here.

I have always had a fascination with the idea that directors’ works and films can sensually meet and clash through video essays. Which beautiful monsters can be brought to life via these experiments? Ian Magor does this by joining an iconic shot from Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock to Michael Snow’s classic avant-garde Wavelength. The result is disquieting and this tells us how video essays, despite their analytical potentialities, might also look like Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment laboratory.

Shadows of Our Forgotten Montages

Dianela Torres

From watching films other films are born. Giving a form to our cinephile gaze, a body of montage made with what I see and what I make of that seeing. In this beautiful, oneiric video essay, on Sergei Parajanov’s film Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Dianela states she aimed for “interpretation and dialectical appropriation of rhythmic and metric”, “emotions and the fluid time-space, music and colours”. Montage unto montage, organic appropriations, essay convey aesthetics and we are reminded of Marcus Aurelius’ words: “all things are implicated in one another.”

Daniela Persico

Programmer, Locarno Film Festival / founder, filmidee.it

A video about the investigation as a drive of contemporary man and a gesture of cinematic love.

The expressive elegance of making the art of editing perceived in Parajanov (and in particular in the film Shadows of our forgotten ancestors) as a process of bringing shadows back to life. Fantasmatic and inspiring.

Once Upon a Screen

A collection of gazes on the evocative theme of traumatic childhood encounters: different styles and perspectives that articulate a critical and cinephile discourse open to different interpretations.

Managing Editor at No Film School

Kevin lays bare something you don’t often see in film analysis: a personal account of how a film traumatises. He takes us to the theatre, now a BevMo!, where he first saw Platoon and tells the intensely intimate story of how the film affected him as a kid. It’s a direct emotional connection between the film analyst and the film he’s analysing: the site of traumatisation may have changed but the trauma itself remains.

This video is a shock to the system of film analysis.

How Movies Prepared Us For Coronavirus

Answer: Surprisingly, they pretty much didn’t.

We’re living in a disaster movie.

No, in My Room | A desktop documentary on the making of a video essay

Beyond the Frame

Video essays make me feel dumb. This one makes me feel like we’re all dumb. I love it so much.

David Lynch | Movies As Therapy

The Discarded Image

Clearly there’s a pattern to my selections this year, you guys. I’m very obviously a nervous and emotional wreck or something because I really gravitated to this video essay by The Discarded Image about how David Lynch uses filmmaking as his therapy.

Why The Red Shoes Looked So Stunning

If you want to know how colour can be used to tell a story, watch The Red Shoes. Boom. It’s an absolute masterclass and it’s beautiful and it almost convinced me that ballet was kinda cooler than basketball. This video essay is an excellent primer into the film’s aesthetic and narrative use of red.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Film critic

In alphabetical order:

L’Année Dernière à Dachau

Mark Rappaport ( read synopsis )

A look at the emotional and historical complexity of our aesthetic preferences.

Her Socialist Smile

John Gianvito ( watch trailer )

It offers some things we may not have known about Helen Keller, socialism, and ourselves.

A House is Not a Home: Wright or Wrong

Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa ( watch trailer )

It offers a lyrical and personal look at the relations between architecture and familial dysfunction by examining Frank Loyd Wright’s Rosenbaum house in Alabama. It isn’t my film, but I was interview subject, consultant, and camera assistant on it.

The Social Dilemma

Jeff Orlowski ( stream on Netflix or watch trailer )

It examines the corruption of communications via marketing, demonstrating how capitalism isn’t a victimless crime.

Sportin’ Life

Abel Ferrara ( watch trailer )

Ferra accurately calls it a documentary on the act of making documentaries.

Women According to Men

Saeed Nouri ( watch trailer )

An archival look at Iranian gender relations.

Charlie Shackleton

Filmmaker and sometime film critic

How To with John Wilson

John Wilson (stream on HBO Max or watch trailer )

I can’t think of anything that gives me greater pleasure than lo-fi on a hi-budget, and nobody’s fi is loer than John Wilson, whose sublime new HBO (!) show captured the beauty of the mundane with an ethereal grace made only more poignant by Wilson’s trademark fumbled voiceover. I didn’t expect the field of video essay to produce a more unexpected mainstream crossover this year than Theo Anthony getting an ESPN special (the excellent Subject to Review) but here it was.

Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another

Jessica Sarah Rinland ( watch trailer )

At one of the last social gatherings I attended before the pandemic, a friend told me that their favourite kind of film is one in which “nothing happens, many times”. That description stuck with me in Britain’s first national lockdown, as I rediscovered my taste for cinematic minimalism in newly streaming films like Ben Rivers’s Now, At Last! and – most memorably – this mesmerising study of archaeological restoration. As with all the best films where nothing happens, many times, Rinland’s work was a catalyst for a torrent of personal imaginative thought, and just when I was starting to feel incapable of it.

In a busy year for video essays on conspiratorial thinking (I also enjoyed Dan Olson’s In Search of a Flat Earth and Kirby Ferguson’s Constantly Wrong ), Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s characteristically probing and precise film was the only offering that seemed more concerned with asking questions than giving answers—surely a prerequisite of getting to grips with a cultural sphere increasingly dominated by conspiracy theories.

Leigh Singer

Film Journalist, programmer, video essayist

One of the saving graces of this awful year has been a greater involvement and engagement with student video work. The results across various courses and different countries has been a revelation – so much insight, originality and technical accomplishment. Though I advised on a couple of the videos below, the finished pieces are entirely the students’ own and I feel very fortunate to have watched the work take shape and then become so expertly realised. In the world of video essays, at least, the future looks bright.

Elizaveta Gushchynskaya

A brilliant, probing pop culture mash-up reflecting and refracting life under lockdown that doubles up as a superlative music video. It’s also the first video essay as part of a student course at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Technology, produced within five days, which makes the results even more extraordinary.

Ways of Looking: Playtime

Sergio Martínez Esqueda (password: Tati)

A dazzlingly original, present tense negotiation of Jacques Tati’s comic masterpiece that reveals so much about its multiple, often simultaneous visual delights and examines how different viewing experiences play a part in these discoveries. Another revelatory first time student video, made on the UK ’s National Film & TV School’s MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation.

Mandy: The Film Concert

Too few video essays go into the audio textures of a film and its score. This one does a superbly effective, visually striking job at conveying complicated technical effects with great clarity. Yet another unbelievably accomplished student project, from the ever-impressive University of Warwick Film Studies department.

So simple, original, elegant, and strangely haunting.

Magnolia Zoomed

A terrific idea, beautifully executed, that resonates in a range of different ways in this most unsettling of years. Could be 2020’s video essay anthem.

Comedy and Tragedy in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite

A video essayist whose growing sophistication and playful touch when examining serious issues gets better every year. Parasite is the video essay gift that keeps on giving, but this is up there with the best feeding off of Bong’s hits.

Let’s Repo! Repo Man’s Plate O’ Shrimp Logic

Miklos Kiss & Shant Bayramian

An inventive, pretzel-logicked (is that a word?), suitably anarchic blast from start to finish, a hit-and-run job that makes you want to (re-)watch the film it hijacks immediately.

Shannon Strucci

video essayist StrucciMovies

Street Cat Rescue: Lionel

Flatbush Cats

Every video by Flatbush Cats is its own touching, elegantly written and edited and edifying little story about a cat. Together they make up a channel that is both a tremendous educational resource and a series of charming vignettes about individual animals and their personalities. You know from the outset that Lionel’s video has an unhappy ending and that it will break your heart, but it’s worth watching anyway, and it’s a fantastic example of what makes this channel so unique and so worth celebrating.

Scout Tafoya

Video essayist, critic and filmmaker

There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse

Nicolás Zukerfeld ( watch trailer )

The video essay casually makes it to the festival circuit. Hypnotic and funny.

last night i dreamt that somebody loved me , The Tale of Eurydice and a letter to adolescence

Haaniyah Angus

My new favourite filmmaker. She doesn’t make traditional video essays, so much as essays written in images. Heartbreakingly raw and emotionally open, even though she’s put barriers between her and her audience (footage from other movies), the connection between them is deeper for its distance. She reaches across mediums with a report on her melancholy, which becomes universal when painted with faces.

A Revolt Without Images (Una revuelta sin imágenes)

Pilar Monsell ( watch trailer )

What Makes a Movie Line Memorable?

Luís Azevedo & Mark Forsythe (Little White Lies)

Crystalline editing from Luis. Just soft as snow.

Milad Tangshir

Iranian filmmaker based in Italy

The Rising of the Moon

James Slaymaker

Surviving Memories

Alessandro Luchetti and Manuela Lazic

Irina Trocan

Lecturer in Film Studies, freelance film critic

Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea: 28 October 2015

While there are many moving films trying to sway the audience into empathy with the perils of migration, few provide such a watertight demonstration: using footage and data from various sources, this video essay/installation follows the play-by-play of an avoidable tragedy. A visually coherent, meticulous and fact-based plea to put human lives ahead of national interests and structure competent institutions accordingly.

The crackdown before Trump’s photo op

Washington Post/Dalton Bennett, Sarah Cahlan, Aaron C. Davis & Joyce Sohyun Lee

Should We Still be Watching Gone with the Wind? Part 1 + Part 2

Cold Crash Pictures

YouTube-standard in form but amazingly communicative in content, this take on the racism of Gone with the Wind is the best chance for anyone on the internet to be heard by the other side. Serge’s imagined viewer is initially respectful of Southern legacy, the monumentality of the 1939 film, skeptical towards accusations of racism and historical inaccuracy. Approaching the film through various videographic means, he builds a case by tackling counterarguments one by one.

Clean with Me (After Dark)

Gabrielle Stemmer ( watch trailer )

A nightmarish vision of what lies behind the shiny surfaces of Cleaning Motivation YouTube, this desktop documentary is borderline-voyeuristic (most likely in tune with how YouTube is meant to be used) and heart-on-its-sleeve empathetic toward the socially isolated women broadcasting themselves (along with the daughters they raise to take on their role). Social media is performative, which is a surprise to no one except the performers themselves.

Repeating Terror in Amat Escalante’s Heli (2013)

Violence is always a tricky subject for videographic exploration – and this take on how the threat of bodily harm exudes from the screen outwards is guaranteed to make you uncomfortable, which is precisely the point.

Like Watching Paint Dry – Éric Rohmer’s My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend

Putting a cinephile spin on a famed diss of Rohmerian cinematic style, this video uses digital wizardry for emphasising individual blocks of colour in an ostensibly plotless film to show where the story really is located: it is to be found in the slow completion of the colour scheme, inspired by a Nicolas de Staël painting that fleetingly appears on a wall as if to confirm an inside-joke of a climax. Like watching paint dry, indeed.

Manual for a Disassembly of Cinema (A Machine for Viewing, episode 3)

A theoretical excursion from cinematic projection to VR interactive gear via North Korean mass gymnastics with a “broken human pixel”, it makes you think of how seeing is altered when mediated by man rather than machine.

David Verdeure

Creator, collector and curator of video essays under the nom de video Filmscalpel

Swings Don’t Swing

Leonhard Müllner

The visual regimes of video games balance between realism and absurdity, between aesthetic refinement and ethic crudeness. There’s a wealth of great video essays and machinima about games. YouTuber eurothug4000 fascinatingly focused on virtual photography within games . But I chose this piece by Leonhard Müllner which virtually visits children’s playgrounds in shooter games. Those playgrounds are used as innocent-looking backdrops to the violent mayhem. Müllner’s video uses the games’ mechanics against themselves to lay bare their visual cynicism. He enacts the revenge of innocence on gamified violence, not in the least through the elegant spatial arrangement of his piece.

I Can’t Stop Watching Contagion

Lockdown life boosted the output of some video essayists and made others sour on the form, but it left nobody indifferent. Several pieces poked fun at our Zoomified existence or lamented our Skyped interactions. Rob Stone fabricated a touching video call between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The fact that his Before the End went viral proves our need for comforting connections – even if they’re not our own.

Dan Olson watched Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion on repeat. The radical form of his confessional video essay visualises how a film can mark us and how it can serve as ‘emotional inoculation”.

Michigan Coronavirus Protestors Roots

The rhetorical strategies of the video essay can be applied to other subjects than film or television. In this US election year, I saw them being used for political purposes in a variety of ways. There were downright deceitful remixes (no, I won’t link one). There were revelatory side-by-side pieces . There were online experiments that made harrowing use of the absence of image and sound. But because politics (and 2020) can benefit from some levity, I chose a frivolous example for this poll. TikToker rebabeba used the desktop documentary format to get to the root of the problem .

Academic practitioners of the video essay served up some fascinating fare in 2020. It is especially great to see some practitioners confidently conduct formal experiments instead of sticking to tried and tested audiovisual strategies. Jill Walker Rettberg for instance enthusiastically embraced Snapchat technology in her video essay on the app’s biometrics .

Katie Bird’s video essay starts off conventionally with a mini-documentary on the early history of Steadicam and Panaglide. But her piece then builds on this historical research with a series of imaginative (and even speculative) visual experiments that make the most of the videographic form.

John Cleese + Anthony Braxton

Olivier Godin

Video essays and performance studies are a natural match. This piece for the Canadian website Zoom Out is another fine piece of evidence. Olivier Godin matches up the work of two performers: one an actor and the other a musician. Scenes from the legendary British sitcom Fawlty Towers are rescored using Anthony Braxton’s free-jazz composition For Alto. The music emphasises Cleese’s erratic physical comedy and brings out the unpredictable dynamism of his dialogue delivery. This counterintuitive combination prompts the viewer to consider Cleese’s dialogue delivery as a musical improvisation – one with the unpredictable energy of Braxton’s jazz.

Michael Witt

Professor of Cinema at the University of Roehampton, London

Characteristically sharp, inventive audiovisual film criticism from the great Mark Rappaport.

Illuminating audiovisual study of the history, uses and effects of the Steadicam and Panaglide.

Andrea Luka Zimmerman

Moving personal exploration of the terms of the film’s title.

Golden Gate

William Brown

Insightful audiovisual investigation of the cinematic representation of the Golden Gate Bridge from a post-humanist perspective.

Thought-provoking poetic study of the relationship between successive image recording technologies and what they capture and omit.

Against the Day

Succinct reflection on the role of light in Philippe Grandrieux’s Sombre (1998).

Further reading

The best film books of 2020, the best blu-rays and dvds of 2020, the 50 best films of 2020, sign up for sight and sound’s weekly film bulletin and more.

News, reviews and archive features every Friday, and information about our latest magazine once a month.

Other things to explore

The best video essays of 2023.

By Queline Meadows

The best films of 2023 – all the votes

Martin scorsese on winning sight and sound’s best films of 2023 poll with killers of the flower moon.

Analysis of Music Video Essay

Introduction, works cited.

In this work the discussion is going to focus on a hip hop video by one of the greatest MCs in the industry by the stage name of NAS born Nasir Jones, Nas released the song in 16th April 2002. The song was released by the Columbia records and the distribution is done by III Will Records based in the United States.

The song is the third single in his Album Stillmatic, the Fifth album (Richard 44). When he was a teenager, Nas is believed to have enlisted his close pal and neighbor as his DJ. Nas was initially known during in his early age as Kid wave before he adopted his recent alias name of nasty Nas.

His first appearance was in 1991 where he performed on the main source where he was doing live performance at the barbeque. This is where Nas established himself as a teenage sensational with his performances. In the mid 1992 MC Serch is believed to have approached and secured a contract for Nas with the famous Columbia records where he also acted as his manager in that same year.

Nas first debut solo single was under his name of Nasty Nas that was part of the single halftime that was done by Serch `s sound track that was for the film zebra head . Nas was also featured in Serch solo album and Nas appearance on the back to the Grill again helped in intensifying the interest in Nas. It was during his early appearances in these albums that led to the hailing of his rhyming mastermind skills attracted the attention from the members of the hip hop fraternity.

One of the deadliest tracks so far by Nas is believed to his single going by the title of the One Mic. This song is believed to have brought in a different dimension to the hip hop culture and believes. The presentation of the message is just unbelievable.

The production was handled by the renowned Hip-hop producer Chucky Thompson and Nas. The song features production procedure that encompassed a quite harmony that progressively increases in intensity and energy until an increasingly amped Nas lets out his lyrical anger bubble over like a final dream combatant strike once too often (Covach 6).

The writer of the song is Nick Butler and he describes the song`s structure as a slow build up from simple scrip to the full production. The composition is a bit interesting in such a way that the song is like two mini hip-hop versions that would be clear when Nas gets to the third verse of the script where he does the same thing in reverse (Walker 11). The final verse is also seen reversing the formula where Nas starts from the louder to soft spoken thus getting the audience closer to his rapping and the lyrics.

The song is unique; its starting is slow with evident deliberate flow and beats. The slow beat that the song starts with is suggestive of a crappy R&B song, as the song progresses, Nas sluggish flow turns out into an angry seethes over the fast-paced beat and lastly the siren. The song literally crescendos’ till Nas is seen to be kind almost screaming over the cleverly elaborated track.

“One Mic” is seen by many as being socially excellent and honest. The lyrics are seen to be aimed at neutralizing the toxic effects caused by the earlier release “You owe Me” which almost destroyed his career. The lyrics of the song describes Nas`s evident urge for simple life. As evident in the lines, “Only if I had one gun, one girl, and one crib…One God to show me how to do things his son did…”( Milliman 7) .

He also discusses the obstacles that he encounters in his quest for a simple life and he clearly proclaims the kind of life he desires. Nas offers a vivid big picture of what that lifestyle will entail; this is seen in the lyrical flow that is captured in the following line, “[if] One ni**ga front, my face on the front page… All I need is one Mic – fuck the cars, the jewelry…” the souvenir motivation the video has been used to maximize the resultant visual flair in the song

The components of dystopian and political awareness are well captured in the lyrics (Milliman 94). If closely observe the video, the “One Mic” brings out the metropolitan claustrophobia that is kind of digitized and well distilled where Nas`s posture of the eyes is seen zooming in for the details and then making a pull back to the panoramic overview.

The lyrical scheme is seen to be building on to the crescendo slowly where the rage and declaration is attained before coming back to seek the path of making the difference with the use of the one precious mic (Everett 16, 77-79). The song can be seen to be calling for immediate action and sense of reality being emitted by the artist.

In his on interview with the rolling stone magazine, Nas stated that the theme of the song “One Mic” is about the power. The song was an avenue for the artist to share with the whole world what is going on in his neighborhood and counts it a blessing to be able to share his experience and let the outside world relate with it. This song as mechanism to clean up any mishaps Nas might have created in his earlier releases was aimed making people turn around, pay attention to what he is saying, and possibly take him seriously.

He aimed at refuting and the notion that he was talking nonsense but he wanted to bring out the reality that majority of the people are facing whereas there has been no formal avenue for the world to really getting to understand the predicament of the people in his neighborhood(Covach and Boone 23, 77, 134). We also see the bringing out the concept of being insane when people or he is upset. The artists sees this as the evidence of people`s ignorance or the just luck of interest to understand the truth or reality in the matter.

The artist is generally presenting facts as they are and he really does not care about those that are scared or guilty of what is happening, the artist generally did not sugar coat his words but since he has his mic let those uncomfortable with what he is saying react using theirs. In the song Nas is asking God for forgiveness for the sins he has committed, the song has some strong religious overtones and lyrical themes that are mostly Christian (Frith 21).

Nas `s allusions generally humanize Jesus brings out the direct parallels between our personal desires and those of the way shower. Nas is asking God to show him the way to do things that His son did. Nas relate the daily challenges faced in day-to-day routines of life with the pressure that Jesus and others felt and we see here an attempt to show the transfer of spiritual gifts and power to himself.

Covach, John and Boone, Graham. Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Covach, John. Form in Rock Music: A Primer. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Everett, Walter. Rock Music: Critical Essays on Composition, Performance, Analysis, and Reception. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Frith, Simon. “ Functions of music in everyday life: an exploratory study using the Experience Sampling Method ,” Musicae Scientiae , 2007 , 5 .1, 9-32.

Middleton, Richard. Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Massachusetts, MA: Wiley-Black-Well,1999.

Milliman, Ronald. “ Using background music to affect the behavior of supermarket shoppers,” Journal of Marketing, 1986, 46 . 3, 86-91.

Walker, Micheal. “ Backward messages in commercially available recordings ,” Popular Music and Society, 2005, 10. 1, 2-13.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, July 12). Analysis of Music Video. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-music-video/

"Analysis of Music Video." IvyPanda , 12 July 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-music-video/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Analysis of Music Video'. 12 July.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Analysis of Music Video." July 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-music-video/.

1. IvyPanda . "Analysis of Music Video." July 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-music-video/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Analysis of Music Video." July 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-music-video/.

• Report on the State of Forensic Science
• The M&M Firm’s Use of Marketing Channels
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
• Composing and Performing Church Music
• The Classical Music and Their Effects
• Music and Vital Congregations
• “Moving from Musician as Performer to Musician as Pastor” by William Bradley Roberts
• Hip-Hop in Japan

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The best video essays of 2020

Creators continue to push the envelope of criticism on YouTube

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For the last few years, video essays have gained more and more prominence on YouTube . With more and more creators choosing a video essay — or video essay-inspired — format, there are video essays about almost any topic you want to learn more about.

To discuss what makes a video essay one of the best of the year, let’s first break down what a video essay was in the year 2020 . There’s more gray area between formats than it initially may seem, especially given how many videos that lack an essay structure take on an essay aesthetic. We used the following criteria for this list:

• The video must be scripted. Momentary improvised asides are fine, especially if they come in the form of voice over added in editing, but the video must otherwise follow a written script.
• The video must have a thesis, and that thesis must be more than “this is good” or “this is bad.” The thesis should concern the impact of the subject matter, not just its content. This means no straight reviews (like La’Ron Readus’s review of Candyman ), no commentary/discussion videos (like Sherliza Moé’s series on cultural appropriation in the Star Wars prequels and Avatar: The Last Airbender ), no lore recaps (like My Name Is Byf’s meticulous archival works of the Destiny 2 lore), and no straight-up histories (like Sarah Z’s retelling of the infamous DashCon).
• The video also shouldn’t be a documentary (like NoClip’s documentary about the making of Pyre ). The focus should be a subject from an analytical standpoint, not an interview standpoint.
• But this doesn’t mean the video should necessarily aim for pure objectivity; personal video essays are, in fact, a thing.

This isn’t to say the excluded videos aren’t great. On the contrary: the ones mentioned above absolutely rule. Defining the parameters of a video essay, though, puts the videos discussed here on an equal playing field. When you watch, you know you’ll come away understanding the subject matter, and likely how art and society impact each other, a little better. Almost all of these videos contain spoilers, so watch at your own risk — but most can be enjoyed regardless of your familiarity with the subject matter, too.

1. “In Search of Flat Earth,” Dan Olson (Folding Ideas)

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas has been a video essayist for years, helping solidify the medium on YouTube. “In Search of Flat Earth,” though, is his masterpiece to date. The video is shot beautifully, with loving and reverent shots of nature that not only contribute to the video’s content and concepts, but also capture a sense of still beauty. If the video seeks to claim that flat earthers feel powerlessness in the face of the government and science, the way this video is shot makes the claim that maybe our powerlessness can be good, actually. But “In Search of Flat Earth” isn’t just a response to flat earthers; it’s also a response to Olson’s contemporaries who have made videos trying to convince flat earthers that their ideas are wrong. “In Search of Flat Earth” argues that flat earthers, and people with similar mindsets, can’t be logicked out of their mindsets — which turns into a surprise, mind-blowing third-act twist.

2. “The Satirical Resurgence of Reefer Madness,” Yhara Zayd

Yhara Zayd is somewhat of a newcomer to video essays, posting her first, “The Remake That Couldn’t: Skins U.S. ” in June 2019. Her catalogue of work has boomed in 2020, making selecting a video to feature difficult; her work is consistently standout, mixing analysis with dry comedy and heavy aesthetics. In a landmark year for marijuana legalization, “The Satirical Resurgence of Reefer Madness ” feels especially timely and important, but it’s also just a delight to watch. The video is not just a look into a criminally underrated musical starring Kristen Bell, Alan Cummings, and Ana Gasteyer. It’s a look into the real 1936 propaganda film of the same name, how the laws around marijuana criminalization were formed, and the deeply racist roots of anti-marijuana campaigns. Zayd’s soft but direct voice and distinctly internet-culture-informed humor make the video consistently engaging and fun while never shying away from what makes Reefer Madness so worthy of a campy parody musical.

3. “The Strange Reality of Roller Coaster Tycoon,” Jacob Geller

Roller Coaster Tycoon is a nostalgic classic — but what can it teach us about death? A weird amount, as Geller explains in “The Strange Reality of Roller Coaster Tycoon .” This video opens with the sentence, “There is at least one roller coaster designed specifically to kill you.” The “Euthanasia Coaster,” Geller explains, was never made, but would effectively kill a rider in just about a minute. As he breaks down the rituals around death, he winds his way around curves and loops, masterfully bringing the audience back to the game at the core of the video: Roller Coaster Tycoon . In just over 18 minutes, Geller’s analysis breaks down how the game allows for meaningful struggle in its mechanics — which the video essayist notes are similar in their coding to a roller coaster — while allowing for monstrosities, lethal roller coasters that bring your virtual park-goers to their grave. A roller coaster is meant to scare us, meant to spike adrenaline, meant to put the fear of death right in us, but fun! Geller’s discussion of Roller Coaster Tycoon shows just how much coasters, real or virtual, say about how we deal with death.

Disclosure: Jacob Geller has written for Polygon.

4. “ CATS ! And the Weird Mind of TS Eliot,” Maggie Mae Fish

Cats may have come out in 2019, but Maggie Mae Fish’s video essay on it came out in March 2020, so early into what the rest of the year would become. It was a small, but wonderfully unhinged blessing for video essay lovers who needed something bonkers to keep us afloat during quarantine. Fish’s performance background is in comedy and improv, notably working with Cracked before starting on her own video essays. Her writing and performance have a level of effervescent delight and bewilderment at most of the trash media she discusses, coming through most in her discussion of Cats .

But while a video on why Cats was bad could have been engaging and funny, Fish takes a step deeper, looking into the musical’s source material: the poetry of T.S. Eliot, a homophobic, antisemitic weirdo. Fish doesn’t just express Eliot’s politics, but explains why Cats pulls from fascist ideologies in its depiction of a tradition-heavy death cult. (Just, you know, with cats.) From there, Fish’s analysis goes even deeper. This video isn’t about not liking problematic media, or even “bad” media. It’s a video about deeply loving something that winds up parodying and subverting its roots.

5. “The Anatomy of Stan Culture,” Elexus Jionde (Intelexual Media)

Historian Elexius Jionde of Intelexual Media often takes a cultural anthropology lens in her videos, discussing topics like life in the American 1970s and the history of Black homelessness . In “The Anatomy of Stan Culture,” Jionde breaks down a current social phenomenon through a historical lens, asking why we stan and how we got here. Jionde dissects “celebrity worship disorder” and how fans obsess over their favorite celebrities, while not letting people who think they’re too good for the goss off the hook either. Using examples ranging from Bhad Babie to Selena Quintanilla to Victorian actors, Jionde shows how current celebrity culture is rooted in everything from politics to evolutionary biology. This 18-minute video is a crash course in how the celebrity industry runs, and it’s also an analysis of how we interact with celebrity right now. How do stans go from liking Ariana Grande’s music to replicating Ariana Grande’s voice to sending death threats to people who besmirch Ariana Grande’s name? Jionde doesn’t necessarily judge stans; instead, she shows how celebrity culture affects the rest of culture.

6. “On Writing: Mental Illness in Video Games,” Tim Hickson (Hello Future Me)

Before talking about what makes this video essay great, a warning: this video discusses struggles with mental health, including several aspects of suicide. It’s the heaviest video essay on this list, so make sure you know what you’re getting into before you watch.

Tim Hickson of the channel Hello Future Me opens the video by disclosing his experience working for a youth mental health and suicide intervention hotline. From there, he first discusses the ways in which video games, immersive narratives where players have control and make choices, can be cathartic for people with mental illnesses and informative for people who don’t. Citing games from World of Warcraft to Celeste to Prey to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice , Hickson shows the different ways games dive into depression, social anxiety, and schizophrenia. A segment focused on Life is Strange ’s Kate Marsh dissects how a story can be cathartic for one person, but harmful for another. It’s a deeply empathetic video essay with rich research. It’s sobering, emotional, and moving.

7. “Why Anime is for Black People - Hip Hop x Anime,” Yedoye Travis (Beyond the Bot)

Beyond the Bot is a new New York-based collective making video essays about how anime impacts culture, and like with Yhara Zaid’s work, it was difficult to choose a favorite. “Why Anime is for Black People” is a standout for just how deep the analysis goes into the crossover between Black and East Asian culture. Going back to ’70s Blaxploitation and kung fu films, host and writer Yedoye Travis chronicles how East Asian media permeated Black culture, eventually leading to the Wu-Tang Clan sourcing their samples from films like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Shaolin and Wu Tang . Legendary producer J Dilla would later go on to sample East Asian music as well. And, of course, Travis spends a good deal talking about the important of the Toonami block of Adult Swim, and the importance of the network playing music from bands like Gorillaz and their lo-fi hip-hop bed music for bumps. Travis explains how the shows themselves — namely Cowboy Bebop , Samurai Champloo , and, of course, The Boondocks — made an impact on Black youth who grew up alongside the programming. The historical lens of the cross-culture influences allows this analysis to go deeper than similar video essays, but the tone stays casual, giving plenty of asides and jokes for people familiar with the content.

8. “What Is *Good* Queer Representation in 2020?,” Princess Weekes (MelinaPendulum)

2020 has been a landmark year for queer representation in the media, and Princess Weekes’ “What Is *Good* Queer Representation in 2020?” seeks to pick apart what has been “good,” what has been “bad,” and most often, what has just been complicated. Like any discussion of representation, Weekes talks about how important it is for queer people to see different versions of queer people in a variety of media, and the tendency for queer people to overlook works by queer creators, or judge them more harshly than works by creators who aren’t queer. She breaks down queer assimilation and respectability politics, taking a stance that’s emotional and personal, while still being relatable and pervasive. This video essay is a great start for how we can start discussing ways to complicate representation, to move away from the sanitization of queer narratives, and understand that what makes one person feel seen might do the opposite for someone else.

9. “Fallout: New Vegas Is Genius, And Here’s Why,” Harry Brewis (hbomberguy)

Harry Brewis’ trend of surprisingly long videos with sarcastically simplistic titles continues with his hour-and-a-half testament to what makes a good narrative-heavy RPG, using Fallout: New Vegas as an example of the best of the best. Don’t let the title trick you into thinking the video is a review. It’s much closer to a masterclass on writing for games, and implementing your story and worldbuilding into every single aspect of that game. From the world to the companions to the main plot to the side quests to the combat to the continuity of consequences, Brewis lays out how Fallout: New Vegas gives its players genuine choices, and then makes those choices genuinely significant in the game. He argues the game actually deals in “gray morality” instead of just saying it does while pushing players to be Good or Evil. The choices in the game often leave the player ambivalent, while placing them in a wild world that players can choose to make even wilder. Brewis uses the video to talk about what makes Fallout: New Vegas work, and why so many games pale in comparison. It isn’t just that Fallout: New Vegas is good —it’s that it’s a meticulous game made by people who cared about every single detail they developed.

10. “Whisper of the Heart: How Does It Feel to Be an Artist,” Accented Cinema

Whisper of the Heart is one of the quieter Studio Ghibli films, and likewise, this video essay by Accented Cinema is quiet, lovely, and tender. Accented Cinema is a video essay channel that focuses on foreign (at least, foreign to the United States) media and its impact. “ Whisper of the Heart : How Does It Feel to Be an Artist” is the most personal essay on this list, a necessity for an analysis of the very personal feeling of creating art. In the video, the host discusses how most artists don’t have the frenzied drive media often depicts. Instead, they have the slow, sometimes frustrating, sometimes euphoric drive of anyone who does something because it’s who they are. This video also comes with a warning that it discusses a tragic death in the studio — but the way it brings the discussion of that death back to the essay’s thesis is spectacular.

Communications: Video Essay

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• CMS/PL 331: Media in the Arab World
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• CMS 333: TV After TV
• CW/DJRN 346: Creative Writing Workshop: Travel Writing

What is a video essay?

A video essay is a short video that illustrates a topic, expresses an opinion and develops a thesis statement based on research through editing video, sound and image.

(Source: Morrissey, K. (2015, September). Stop Teaching Software, Start Teaching Software Literacy. Flowjournal . https://www.flowjournal.org/2015/09/stop-teaching-software-start-teaching-software-literacy/?print=print )

It is made of three main elements:

• Image (filmed footage and found footage)
• Sound (music and audio)
• Words (spoken and written)

All of them are linked to your own voice and argument. It is a way to write with video.

• Guidelines for Video Essay Best Practices Official technical guidelines by Prof. Antonio Lopez.

Video essays about video essays

Why Video Essays are just plain AWESOME by This Guy Edits  on YouTube .

Elements of the Essay Film from Kevin B. Lee on Vimeo .

F for Fake (1973) – How to Structure a Video Essay from Tony Zhou on Vimeo .

Sample Video Essays

• If Educational Videos Were Filmed Like Music Videos by Tom Scott
• How to Use Color in Film A blog post with multiple video essays about the use of color palettes by multiple great directors.
• Seed, Image, Ground by Abelardo Gil-Fournier & Jussi Parikka.
• Every Covid-19 Commercial is Exactly the Same
• Top Video Essayists some videos on this page are set to private
• VideoEssay: A subreddit for analytic videos and supercuts
• ISIL videos imitate Hollywood and video games to win converts
• Best Video Essays of 2023
• Best Video Essays of 2022 by British Film Institute
• Best Video Essays of 2020 by British Film Institute.
• Best Video Essays of 2019 by British Film Institute.
• Best Video Essays of 2018 by British Film Institute.
• Best Video Essays of 2017 by British Film Institute.
• Video Essays (Historical) A YouTube playlist of historically important films that helped define the concept of video essays.
• What Is Neorealism by kogonada.
• Analyzing Isis' propaganda - Mujatweets by Azza el Masri and Catherine Otayek.
• Oh dear! by Adam Curtis.
• Fembot in a Red Dress by Alison De Fren.
• WHY IS CINEMA: Women Filmmakers? NOT SEXIST, BUT LET'S BE REAL??? by Cameron Carpenter.
• Women as Reward - Tropes vs Women in Video Games by feministfrequency.
• Il corpo delle donne (sub eng) by Lorella Zanardo.

Video essays beyond COM

Video essays can be a valuable form of academic production, and they can be brilliant and insightful in many other fields apart from Communications and media studies. Here are some examples that cover all the JCU departments:

• Lady of Shalott | Art Analysis A look at John William Waterhouse's Pre-Raphaelite painting "The Lady of Shalott".
• How to ace your MBA video essay The 60-second online video essay is a recent addition to the MBA application process for some business schools.
• The Last Jedi - Forcing Change An analysis of Finn's and Kylo's narrative arc in Episode VIII of the Star Wars franchise.
• How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio A simple but not simplistic and easy to follow 30 minute animated video that answers the question.
• Evolution of the Hero in British Literature This video essay discusses the literary heroes throughout the Anglo-Saxon Period, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance Era in British Literature.
• Fast Math Tricks - How to multiply 2 digit numbers up to 100 - the fast way! An easy video tutorial unveiling some math tricks.
• Here's why we need to rethink veganism A brief climate change video essay on the environmental impacts of veganism, and how we can reframe going vegan less as a lifestyle and more as an aspiration.
• Italy on the edge of crisis: Should Europe be worried? Channel 4 discussing the delicate political juncture in Italy (May 2018).
• International Relations: An Introduction An overview by the London School of Economics and Social Science.

A video is basically a series of still images- each one is called a frame- that play back at a specific  rate . The frame rate (often abbreviated FPS for "frames per second") differs depending on where you are in the world and what you're shooting on.

If you're shooting a movie on celluloid (actual film that needs to be developed) then you are probably shooting at 24fps.

If you are shooting video in Europe then you are probably shooting at 25fps...

...unless you are shooting sports. Then you're probably shooting at 50fps.

If you're shooting video in the US or Canada then you are probably shooting at 30(29.98)fps...

...unless you're shooting sports. Then you're probably shooting at 60(59.98)fps...

...or unless you're shooting "cinematic video" at a frame rate of 23.976fps.

***The weird numbers for shooting in the US and Canada stem from the fact that while Europe's 50Hz electrical system operates at 50Hz, the 60Hz electrical system of the US actually operates at 59.98 Hz.***

If you're shooting at a higher frame rate (like 120fps or 250fps) it is probably because you want to play it back at one of these frame rates in order to achieve a slow motion effect.

Video sizes are measured in pixels. Resolution   refers to Width x Height. Here are some common resolutions:

• FullHD (1080p): 1920 x 1080
• HD (720p): 1280 x 720
• 4K (2160p): 3840 x 2160
• 4K Cinema: 4096 x 2160
• Standard Defintion (NTSC- US/Canada): 720 x 480
• Standard Definition (PAL- Europe): 720 x 576
• VGA: 640 x 360

Types of video essays

1. Supercut

A supercut is a compilation of a large number of (short) film clips, focusing on a common characteristic these clips have. That commonality can be anything: a formal or stylistic aspect, a shared theme or subject matter... 

Supercuts are a staple of fandom, but they can also be used as a form of audiovisual critique: to reveal cinematic tropes, to trace thematic or stylistic constants in a filmmaker’s work and so on.

Examples: ROYGBIV: A Pixar Supercut  or Microsoft Sam's  Every Covid-19 Commercial is Exactly the Same  or Chloé Barreau's  NON UNA DI MENO - l'8 MARZO sta arrivando!

2. Voiceover based

In this form, analysis is done by combining clips and images with a narrator’s voice that guides the process. This could be done for a variety of video essays styles: scene breakdowns, shot analyses, structural analyses, vlogs, etc. What is common is the integral role of the creator’s voice in advancing the argument.

Example: Tony Zhou’s Jackie Chan—How to Do Action Comedy or David Chen’s Edgar Wright and the Art of Close-Ups .

3. Text/Image/Sound-Based

In this form, analysis is done by combining text, images and sounds without a narrator’s voice to guide the process. Again, this could be done for a variety of video essays styles, but relies much more on editing to advance the argument.

Example: Kevin B. Lee’s Elements of the Essay Film or Catherine Grant’s All That Pastiche Allows Redux .

4. Desktop Films

A desktop film uses the screen of a computer or gadget to serve as the camera and canvas for all of the content of an audiovisual narrative. It can include content from videos, apps, and programs that would be viewable on a screen. It is a screen-based experience that uses the desktop as its primary medium.

Example: Katja Jansen’s Desktop Films ; Kevin B. Lee’s Reading // Binging // Benning .

Descriptions adapted from  Filmscalpel

Resources: background and fundamentals

Best Practices

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education Also downloadable as a PDF file
• Streaming: film criticism you can watch by Guy Lodge
• What is a Video Essay? Creators Grapple with a Definition Paula Bernstein from Filmmaker journal .
• The Video Essay As Art: 11 Ways to Make a Video Essay by Norman Bateman.
• Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent by Kevin B. Lee.
• Deep Focus - The Essay Film by British Film Institute and Sight & Sound .

Scholarly Websites about Video Essays

• The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy
• Audiovisualcy Video Essays on Vimeo.
• [In]Transition Journal of Videographic Films and Moving Image Studies.
• Introductory guide to video essay From the British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council.

Resources: software and how-to

• How-to video essays by Greer Fyfe and Miriam Ross.
• Media Production Guide by Tisch Library, Tufts University.
• Video Reactions with OBS (Open Broadcast Software) Part 01 Setting up your scenes
• Video Reactions with OBS (Open Broadcast Software) Part 02 Recording with OBS

Storyboarding

• Planning and Storyboarding from Royal Roads University Library.
• Video Essay Script Template

Screencasting

• Quicktime (cross-platform)
• Screencast-O-Matic
• OBS Studio (open source, cross-platform) Open Broadcaster Software
• Flashback Express (PC only)
• 5 Free Tools for Creating a Screencast from Mashable.

Downloading and ripping

• Pasty Software for downloading.
• Savefrom allows up to 720p downloads of full video, 1080p downloads of video only (no audio). Select “download video in browser” on the site.
• Y2mate allows up to 1080p video downloads.
• Jdownloader Software for downloading
• Handbrake Software for ripping and converting
• DMA Basics: OBS for Video Essays A tutorial on how to use OBS for Netflix.

Note: Try to to ensure that you download in 720p resolution or higher. Your minimum level of quality should be 480p. If searching on YouTube, you can filter the search results to only show HD or 4K results. Check also the  Find Video   tab of this guide.

Free editing software options

• DaVinci Resolve (cross-platform) A color grading and non-linear video editing (NLE) application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, incorporating tools from Fairlight (audio production) and Fusion (motion graphics and visual effects that throw shade on After Effects).
• iMovie (Mac only)
• Videopad (cross-plaftorm)
• OpenShot (open source, cross-platform)
• Shortcut (open source, cross-platform)
• HitFilm Express (cross-platform)
• Free Music Archive An interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by the radio station WFMU.
• SoundCloud SoundCloud is one of the world’s largest music and audio platform and you can search for creative commons music.
• YouTube Audio Library A library of free music and sound effects by YouTube. Each track is accompanied by information on the use.
• Sound Image Free music (and more) for your Projects by Eric Matyas. Only requires crediting the author for legal use (see "attribution info" page).
• Audacity A free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software. Very useful to trim audio, convert a sample rate, apply a little compression, chop & screw, etc.
• REAPER A digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer software. Technically a paid-for platform, its free-trial never ends.

Check also the  Find  Audio Resources  tab of this guide.

Creating credits, copyright and fair use

• Creating credits for video essays From Digital Design Studio at Tisch Library
• Fair Use Evaluator
• YouTube Fair Use Channel
• Society for Cinema and Media Studies Statement on Fair Use
• Blender A free and open-source 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and computer games.
• GIMP A free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks.
• Inkscape A free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format.
• Krita A free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation. Good for sketching and conceptual art.

Stock footage

For stock footage, please check under the  Find video tab of this guide.

• Final Cut Pro X Tutorial by JCU Digital Media Lab.
• Final Cut Pro X Tutorial (PDF)
• Final Cut Pro X Full Tutorial by David A. Cox
• Audio Recording Tutorial by JCU Digital Media Lab.
• << Previous: Find Videos
• Next: Find Images >>
• Last Updated: Mar 26, 2024 9:37 AM
• URL: https://johncabot.libguides.com/communications

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Beyonce — An Analysis of Beyonce’s Music Video “Formation”

An Analysis of Beyonce's Music Video "Formation"

• Categories: Beyonce

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Published: Nov 22, 2018

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• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Title Index
• Practicing Rhetorical Analysis with Music Videos

Author: 

Deb Streusand

Image Credit: 

Screenshot by Deb Streusand from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg, Taylor Swift's video for "Blank Space"

            In my Rhetoric of Performance class, we begin each class day by watching and discussing a brief performance a student has brought in to share with the class. Since these performances are supposed to be 3-5 minutes, students frequently bring in music videos. With each performance, we do an informal rhetorical analysis.

             First I ask the students what they noticed about the performance while they were watching. They frequently make note of things like symbolism and imagery – in other words, they tend to close read the videos. The goal of my line of questioning after that, however, is to bring them away from that tendency and into the world of rhetorical analysis.

            I ask the students what they think the argument of the performance is. The argument of a performance is not like the argument of a written piece. With a good piece of persuasive writing, as a rule, everyone should come away from it with the same general idea of what the argument was. With a performance, it’s not a bad thing if we come away with some disagreement as to what the argument might be. The students often debate what the argument is, or bring in a multiplicity of answers, but they never have trouble finding some argument in the piece, even though music videos aren’t necessarily designed to make and defend a claim. One of the principles I put forth in teaching this class is that every performance has an argument. I believe this is true, but making the claim makes me a little nervous, because defending it is inevitably inductive – I will never conclusively prove that every single performance has an argument. However, each class day, my students add credence to my gradual inductive proof of this claim, because they have never failed to find an argument in any performance we’ve watched.

            After we’ve wrangled over the argument for a while, we start talking rhetorical appeals. They don’t know that’s what we’re doing yet, though. We haven’t actually entered the rhetorical analysis unit. But we’ve been doing this all semester, from the second class day. By the time they get to rhetorical analysis, they’re already going to be pros at doing it – all that will be new to them is the terminology.

            Every day, I ask them: what kind of persona does the performer present in making this argument? What is the intended audience, and how are they supposed to feel? How is the argument supported? What are the current social conversations to which this argument is contributing? Ethos, pathos, logos, kairos – all in a 4 minute video. My students practice rhetorical analysis 10-15 minutes per class day, all semester long. And because music videos are fun to watch and take apart, they have a great time while they’re doing it.

             We don’t always watch music videos. Some students bring in short dance pieces, or political rants, or slam poetry. I mention music videos because they would be easy to incorporate into a non-performance rhetoric class as a warmup for rhetorical analysis. To make it simpler, the professor might choose them instead of having students bring them in, to make sure there’s lots to talk about – I always start the semester with Beyonc é’s video for “Flawless,” which has never failed to spark dialogue. The main point is to get the students used to doing rhetorical analysis while talking about something that’s fun.

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Learn to write stories

Music video analysis (and how to write a music video script)

How to write a music video script, the era of the music video.

Since around 30 years, and especially since the incredible Thriller by Mickael Jackson , music videos have been a fascinating media not only for popular music , but also to develop the artistic and philosophical world of singers and bands . They are vital to guarantee the promotion and to spread a clearly identifyable public image.

There are funny and scary music videos ; simple and easy, or complex, tricky, stunning music videos ; hyper-realistic or poetic and philosophical music videos ; in sync, or not in sync, narrative and dramatic or contemplative and purely visual music videos etc.

Despite of this diversity and this richness, the basic materials are still narration and discourse , plots , characters , situations , places and themes .

To understand better what is going on in a music video , and to make yours, the best way is to study the best works of famous scriptwriters and filmmakers .

Writing a narrative video

You are an artist, singer, musician or group of rap / hip hop, rock, electro, pop music or any other genre, and you want to write a music video script?

Right away, you have a choice to make between two options:

• either you make a clip that represents you as an artist or a band playing and singing, with more or less staging, with or without danse scenes
• or you write and produce a real fictional film, a narrative video with a story and characters, a beginning and an end, dramatic tension and suspense

The first option seems largely flatter, poorer, less artistic and less original than taking your audience on an imaginary journey through a fictional story. Indeed, in this kind of clip nothing special happens on a visual level, and nothing on a narrative and fictional level. At best, impressive choreography is the only truly artistic aspect of this kind of clip.

The second option is that of many clips that have marked the history of music, and which are true works of art. These clips invent a world, tell a story, give the audience the opportunity to dream by identifying with a main character, and thus bring a real added value to the music.

Sometimes there is a mixture of both formulas, and the artist or the musical group is included in the fiction, either as a character or in the setting.

Music video analysis

As a writer and specialist in narrative, I have analyzed, scene by scene / shot  by shot , 14 of the greatest scripts of music videos in the history of music, listing all the noticeable details and effects . All of these clips are narrative:

• How were those videos built?
• How were the stories conceived?
• How were the plots written and arranged together?
• How were the characters designed?
• How did the scriptwriters and film-makers to offer their audiences a great show, using huge or minimum means, mixing horror, humor, political ideas, sex-appeal…?

To improve one’s technique and make one’s knowledge concrete, there is nothing better than analyzing masterworks , taking the best out of them to re-use it in your own works!

Our program of analysis

Michael Jackson – Thriller  – Director: John Landis Radiohead – No Surprises  – Director: Grant Gee Radiohead –  Karma Police  – Director: Jonathan Glazer Thom Yorke / UNKLE – Rabbit In Your Headlights  – Director: Jonathan Glazer Björk – All is full of love  – Director: Chris Cunningham Röyksopp – Remind Me  – Director: Ludovic Houplan & Hervé de Crécy (H5) Justice – Stress  – Director: Romain Gavras Skrillex – First Of The Year  – Director: Tony Truand Skrillex – Bangarang  – Director: Tony Truand Aphex Twin – Come to Daddy  – Director: Chris Cunningham Sebastien Tellier – Look  – Director: Mrzyk & Moriceau Etienne de Crecy – Am I wrong?  – Director: Geoffroy de Crécy Etienne de Crecy ft Camille – Someone like you  – Director: Marie de Crécy Bomfunk MC – Freestyler

How do you write a narrative music video script?

A music video script works just like a screenplay – the music video is simply a form of short film – with a few differences:

The visual narrative is silent

In general, the strategic importance of the soundtrack prohibits the use of dialogues , so the narration must adopt a purely visual mode, allowing only a few words or sound effects.

Indeed, the spectators who watch a clip watch it first to enjoy the music, so it is not a question of replacing it by the soundtrack of a film.

This constraint leads to a visual style made of rapid alternations between contrasting shots, close-ups and wide shots, fixed or moving camera, light effects, in short, everything that can have an intense visual impact in harmony with the music.

The music sets the pace of the clip

The scenario of the clip must stick strictly to the main phases of the music and respect its duration and rhythms – the intro, the verses, the choruses, the breaks etc. When the music changes, becomes silent or rises to a crescendo, the film must adapt.

Sometimes the clip lasts longer than the music, which is then inserted into a film that has an introduction and a conclusion.

The music inspires the world of the clip

The artist’s universe and the song’s universe must be related to the thematic universe of the film, without making a flat illustration of it: if the song says “I love you”, showing two people kissing on the screen does not bring anything.

The clip’s time is limited!

In a feature film, the screenwriter has the right to take time to set up the action, introduce the characters, build suspense, etc. But in a music video, you can’t take the time to set up the action, you usually only have 3 to 5 minutes to tell the whole story. So you have to set the scene, introduce the characters and get the action going, in less than 30 seconds.

The music video is a mass cultural product

A music video is intended to reach a large number of people: it serves as a vector in an artistic and commercial strategy that aims to popularize a piece of music.

Therefore, it is important to choose themes carefully and to build the story with the aim of producing a strong emotional impact on its target audience, and to deliver a strong message.

The main choices to make when writing a music video

Scripting a video clip involves the following operations:

1/ Defining a genre

Genres allow you to set a frame of reference that is already known and understood by the audience.

• A horror movie like in Thriller or Come To Daddy
• An erotic film in Look
• A love story in the form of a science fiction film in All is full of love
• A road movie and a chase in Karma Police

2/ Choosing a setting and locations

The setting and the places automatically bring meaning to the story, by giving it a visible and meaningful social and cultural reality.

• Freestyler takes place in an ordinary place, the subway, where something magical and wonderful will happen
• Remind Me takes place in the contemporary world and the everyday life
• Am I wrong? takes place in a hamburger joint – and shows an acid criticism of junk food
• Stress is set in the suburbs of Paris in creepy and scary places that inspire fear

3/ Telling an interesting story

The story is what will catch the audience’s attention, generate their identification with the hero, and have an emotional impact.

Depending on the case, clips can be more or less narrative and dramatic (so I call them perfectly narrative or imperfectly narrative), or they can be based on another mode of functioning, for example poetic or contemplative.

Perfectly narrative clips

• Thriller – the story  of a young man who loves to terrorize his girlfriend
• Stress – the story  of a group of merciless vandals
• First Of The Year – the story  of generous gangsters
• Bangarang – the story  of a little girl who tortures a pedophile
• Am I wrong? – the story  of an ordinary customer who disturbs a fast-food restaurant
• Freestyler – the story  of a teenager who dreams of controlling the world

Imperfectly narrative clips

• No Surprises – allegory of the tragedy of the human condition
• Karma Police – incomprehensible story  of hunted hunter
• Rabbit In Your Headlights – incomprehensible Hero of survival
• All is full of love – pure love, non-dramatic story  rejecting any conflict
• Come To Daddy – confusing story of anxiety and madness
• Someone Like You – illusion of a love story

Few narrative clips

• Remind Me – description of an all too technical, loveless world
• Look – poetic crossing of metaphors of pleasure and pain, of life and death

4/ Number of plots and actantial roles

In the majority of the narrative videos , we also find some variety especially in the number of plots , even if most of the stories only have one or two plots ( No Surprises , Stress , Bangarang , etc), sometimes three ( Am I wrong? – if we count the mini-plot of the greedy customer), while none have more than seven  plots ( Thriller ) – which can obviously be explained by the short format of the videos . Nevertheless, it would not be impossible to tell 20 mini-plots in a few minutes. If you like this idea, it can make for a good creative exercise 😉

The characters and actantial roles are rarely more than five or six, most of the time they are two or three, Hero vs. Antagonist or Hero + Helper vs. Antagonist .

This formal simplicity makes the genre of music videos look like the genre of songwriting , which is often very simple too and distinguishes it from the complex narrative structures that we find in:

• Novels ( The little prince : 25 plots , 17 actantial characters having 54 actantial roles )
• Movies ( The Godfather : 27 plots , 15 actantial characters having 100 actantial roles ; Pulp Fiction : 10 plots , 19 actantial characters having 30 actantial roles )
• TV series ( Game of thrones , seasons one and two: more than 100 plots , 67 actantial characters having 174 actantial roles ).

5/ Universal themes

Despite fundamental differences of shape, of aesthetics, of structure, we often cross the same themes , especially a strong emotional element like:

• Love or eroticism ( Thriller , All is full of love , Remind Me , Look , Someone Like You , Freestyler )
• Violence, suffering, pain, anxiety, death ( Thriller , No Surprises , Karma Police , Rabbit In Your Headlights , Stress , First Of The Year , Bangarang , Come To Daddy , Look )

Those universal themes obviously guarantee a strong potential of identification from the audience to the stories .

Playlist of music videos we analyzed:

Learn storytelling and scenario techniques from the masters !

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A2 MEDIA STUDIES - GRACE SUITER 

Music video analysis & andrew goodwins theory, a music video is a short, moving image product shot for the express purpose of accompanying a pre-existing music track and usually in order to encourage sales of the music in another format. andrew goodwin supports this dictionary defenition by stating that a music video isn't primarily a commodity form but a promotional one. music video's are often how listeners associate artists with a song, by visualizing them. similarly, if famous stars appear in music videos this can raise the profile of the song and increase its popularity. for instance carly rae jepson's song, i really like you, had tom hanks acting in it and this got a phenomenal 62 million hits on youtube music videos are categorised into three different typology's and these include type 1 - performance, type 2 - narrative and type 3 - concept/abstract. type 1 - performance is where the band is performing their song and includes singing, dancing and playing their own instruments. this typology is normally relevant for rock, alternative or indie and is used to show the bands talents and skills. these are normally self managed, self taught , raw and original talent. type 2 - narrative is a music video which is based around a story and has actors/actresses performing the story solely or alongside the artists. this typology is used to engage the audience and is usually used in songs which can be relatable for the audience; normally love songs and this is supported by stars including taylor swift and katy perry. the final typology; type 3 - concept/abstract  is a video based around one idea or concept and includes abstract objects symbolising a particular idea or concept. it is used to open the audiences imagination and thinking to consider a more philosophical opinion. it is normally based around what the artist believes is important to portay. .

If I were a boy was released in 2008 and is a type 2 - narrative typology and has Beyonce acting alongside two male actors, Eddie Goines and Ryan Locke. The music video coincides with the song lyrics and is saying how men and women are portrayed differently in relationships, how men don't understand womens feelings. There is a role reversal which occurs because Beyonce is presented in the male mindset and Eddie Goines in the female mindset and then in the final stage of the video, the role reverts back to stereotypes. It plays a story whereby Beyonce is getting overly friendly with Ryan Locke and Eddie Goines feels cheated on. It is relatable to women who are going through heartbreak and therefore this gains a wider audience because the song has a meaning which the audience can relate their situation to. It offers personal identity to the audience and this again attracts the audience. The use of the 

BEYONCE - IF I WERE A BOY

close up's throughout the music video also shows emotions which are also relatable to the audience. The black and white filter is also dramatic because it looks low key and portrays a negative image. 

Let her go was released in 2012 and is a type 1 - performance typology and shows Passenger performing the song alongside his band in front of an audience. He is also playing his guitar which adds to the stars raw talent and the song would fit the stereotypical indie genre. The close ups enable the audience to see the meaning and emotion behind the song in the artists NVC and facial expressions. This music video is very simple but still gained 653 million views on YouTube which is an extraordinary number of viewers. The video allows the audience to gather their own interpretation of the song and reflect on past experiences due to its simplicity. The audience also shows the stars talent because he is playing the guitar alongside his band who also sing the back up vocals. 

PASSENGER - LET HER GO

LADY GAGA - YOU AND I

You and I is an example of type 3 - concept/abstract typology and this is the category which Lady Gaga generally appears in. Gaga challenges everyday stereotypes and in You and I she visualises supernatural creatures including mermaids, as well as being dress in very obscure costumes herself. There is nothing stereotypically relatable from the video to the audience and Gaga does this to suggest that normal doesn't exist and that being original can get you success. Gaga is one of the most outrageous artists which exist and has been explicit on numerous occassions and exaggerates that being normal isn't necessary and therefore gives the audience a role model who gives them an oppurtunity to be themselves and be happy as they are. The video got 81 million hits on YouTube and doesn't have a direct meaning to the song lyrics because it shows different 

visions of 'You and I' and is therefore amplified and gives new layers of meaning to the song. 

TAYLOR SWIFT - BAD BLOOD

Bad Blood is an example of type 2 - narrative typology and has the story of where two friends are close and then the unloyal friend stabs Taylor in the back and she comes back stronger than ever and has more truthful and loyal friends! It is illustrative because the music video has a literal interpretation of the lyrics and the video is relatable to anybody going through friendship issues, break ups or just trust issues. The music video also contains Taylor's real life celebrity friends including Ellie Goulding, Cara Delevigne, Jessica Alba and Selena Gomez. The use of the A List stars also attract a wider audience because fans of all the individual celebrities will want to watch the video to see the stars acting and performing. The video also got Vevo's most watched music video in 24 hours and got 20.1 million views in a day! The video engages emotion and pulls on the audiences heartstrings because 

the audience can relate with their own personal experience; creating a personal relationshop with them and the artist. 

Price Tag is an example of type 3 - concept/abstract typology because the meaning of the lyrics is that life isn't about the money you earn, it's about making the most of life and is immitating those who act like they're famous when they're just normal, everyday people! There is contradictory iconography used in the video where Jessie J says "its not about the money, money" whilst standing under a money tree. This contradiction shows that money tree's don't exist so it is suggesting to the audience that they should be obsessed with money and what expensive items they may own. 420 million YouTube hits reitterates that Jessie J's message of money not being the main concept of life is taken into consideration and considered.

JESSIE J - PRICE TAG

Music videos work around three key codes which are illustrative, amplification and contradictory. The illustrative concept is a literal interpretation of the lyrics which would make the song easier for the audience to understand. This concept also creates a relatable element for the audience if they can relate a personal situation with the artists song. The amplification concept adds new layers of meaning to a song, which allows the audience to contemplate the meaning of the song and discover a new meaning to the song. Finally, the contradictory concept poses a contradiction between the lyrics and the image being shown in the music video. The contradiction again allows the audience to challenge different concepts of the songs meaning and compare it to the video. The three different codes/concepts give the audience different feelings and different ways to interpret what they are viewing and apply it in alternative ways, sometimes to their everyday lives if inspiring. 

In our music video we should definitely apply stereotypical codes and conventions that are used in successful music videos in order for it to look professional. However, we also need to be original because otherwise we are not showing our creativity, which is a vital element in the media industry. The contrast between high key and low key lighting depending on what is happening in the video would definitely be an effective way to portray emotion to the audience. Low key lighting can be used when the mood is lowered but when it's positive, high key lighting can be used and these basic but effective changes will easily show the audience what is happening. We plan on encorporating both performance and concept elements in our music video to show that we are using the stereotypical codes and conventions of a successful indie music video. We decided that using concept would be more appropriate than using narrative because it is less cliché and is still a convention but is used less than narrative. We are also going to base our music video around a broken relationship, however without the narrative because the audience will be assuming what is happening and have to make assumption as to the plot, but this should intrigue them and make them feel more invloved and allow personal identity and personal relationships to be discovered. 

JESS GLYNNE - DONT BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF

Don't be so hard on yourself is a mix between type 1, performance, and type 2, narrative, because there are close ups and mid shots of Jess Glynne singing her songs in different settings. However there is also a narrative of a boy who looks like he has lost his father and moved away with his mother and is struggling to settle in. He then learns how to play the drums and is then accepted. This narrative portrays a message to the audience and suggests that even if you are going through a struggle, you can get through it and this is a positive message. Coinciding with this is the shots where Jess Glynne is singing and this reitterates the message to the audience and makes a personal relationship between the audience and the artist. 

TINIE TEMPAH - WRITTEN IN THE STARS

Written in the stars is a combination of type 1 performance and type 2 narrative. There are low angle shots of Tinie Tempah standing on top of a building and there shots are to suggest that he is not longer the 'kid that nobody cares about.' Therefore the song is promoting a positive image to thousands of young people, saying that anybody can be successful. There are also panning, long shots of Eric Turner playing the piano which is incorporated to present his talent of playing instruments as well as singing. Additionally there is a narrative of a young boy who has a tough life and gets bullied, who then turns out to be successful. The narrative is presenting Tinie Tempah's childhood because the low angle shots are on the same building and therefore the performance and narrative coincide. 

WIZ KHALIFA - SEE YOU AGAIN

See you again is a combination between type one performance and type two narrative. There are long shots and close ups of Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth performing, alongside shots from Fast and Furious which are there to show the story of Paul Walkers life throughout fast and furious as a tribute to him following his death. They are slow paced shots of the two singers performing however the montage of different shots which are the narrative and much faster paced to reitterate the success Paul Walker had before his death and the close relationship between him and his friends. The song itself is also challenging stereotypes of which genre artists perform together. It is becoming more typical to see rap artists performing with pop singers and this widens the target audience which a particular song can appeal to. 

TAYLOR SWIFT - SHAKE IT OFF

Shake it off is a type one, performance music video and shows Taylor Swift singing her song whilst also highlighting an important message which coincides with a type three, concept, music video. "Music in my mind saying it's gonna be alright." This quote from the music video is suggesting that even if you're having a bad time, it's going to get better and so the message being portrayed is positive. This music video is very different to her first music video 'Love Story' and it seems as though she has evolved from a young, innocent teenager to a grown woman with a wider perpective on the world. Additionally, she has matured yet again in her most recent music videos, Bad Blood and Wildest Dreams. This supports Richard Dyer's Star Theory because she has grown with her fans and they accept and appreciate that. This means that there hasn't been any radical changes

which may have disrupted her fanbase. Taylor has a wide target audience, however her main fanbase is young girls. Shake it off also supports the 'male gaze' theory because eventhough it isn't a sexualised video, there are shots where she is wearing revealing clothes and this would automatically attract a male audience. Similarly, in Taylor's Love Story music video, male gaze isn't put into practice whatsoever, she looks so innocent wearing a white wedding dress with her blonde hair curled and tied back. Whereas in her bad blood video, male gaze is defintely used because Taylor and the gang of other females, all wear tight black outfits which represent danger and sexual appeal. The gradual maturity of Taylor therefore allowed her fanbase to mature with her at a gradual pace. This is different to Miley Cyrus who went from being Hannah Montanna, an innocent, youthful, popstar to Miley Cyrus who was half naked in her music videos, as well as swinging on a swinging boulder. The longevity of Miley Cyrus was shattered, however this has not happened to Taylor Swift. Richard Dyer also says that there are common values of a pop star and these include sexual magnetism, youthfulness and creativity/talent and these are three categories which the music video fits into, in perspective. Taylor Swift is also presented as ordinary and extraordinary in Shake it off. she is ordinary when she cannot dance like the professional dancers and this creates a parody which is comical and shows the audience that she doesn't take herself too seriosuly. Dyer's star theory also states that the star is both present and absent in our lives. For instance there are ordinary people wearing casual clothing dancing with her at the end of the music video and this makes the audience feel as though they are present in their life. Contradicting this is the fact that Taylor is absent from our lives because she is performing in a music video, surrounded by professional dancers and performers and this reitterates that she is a star and isn't an everyday person like the rest of the world. However, the lack of reality creates a personal relationship between the audience and the star and also allows surveillance to take place because the audience enjoy following Taylor. The high key lighting which is present throughout the music video reitterates the positive message which is being spread and this coincides with the montage of close ups and mid shots of smiling faces from both Taylor and the ordinary people.

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS BASED ON OUR GIVEN GENRE - INDIE POP

Gabrielle aplin - the power of love, 23rd september 2015.

The power of love is a performance based music video and is based around Gabrielle Aplin singing her song whilst playing the piano. The point of having a performance based video is to broadcast her talent and show the rawness of her because she hasn't been changed or modified by the media, which is very rare. The first twenty-two seconds of the music video was establishing shots of an old fashioned, abandoned house. This is to create an atmosphere for the audience and creates mystery for them. The old fashioned house is falling apart gracefully and eventhough it is slowly becoming ruined, there's a distinct beauty of the place and this creates a minor link between the old fashioned house falling apart and old fashioned romance 

falling apart, which is a sad reality and amplifies the meaning of the song. Throughout the song there are extreme close ups of Gabrielle's lips and hands and this is to amplify her talent. The extreme close up of her lips exaggerates the fact that she is singing the song and the extreme close up of her hands shows that she has the talent of playing a piano. This emphasises the rawness of her talent and shows that she is the real star of her music, she isn't a fake musician making money, she actually does have a talent. 2:04 minutes into the song, there is a focus pull which makes the back wall look as though it is closing in on Gabrielle and this suggests that love closes in on all of us at some point and we can't help it. It is as though she is trying to escape from love but it it slowly but surely catching up with her. This looks really effective and also briefly disorientates the audience because the wall isn't actually closing in on her, it is purely edited to give the illusion of the given effect. There are also numerous close ups of the singer songwriter and this is to show the feelings and emotions she feels about the song and this creates a personal relationship between the artist and the audience because they can relate to her feelings. Similarly this can create security for the audience because it reassures them that they are not the only people going through the confusing feelings of love. 3:30 minutes, towards the end of the song, there is tracking in a backwards motion, which reveals more of the setting. The setting is of the piano and an old fashioned, ruined room with Gabrielle's back towards the camera. This divulges a long shot of the star playing the piano and suggests that she doesn't need any other musicians or singers to assist with the song because she can do it independently. This again emphasises her talent and makes the audience feel proud of her achievements. 

There is also direct address from the artist to the audience at 3:25 as she looks down the camera and says "Make love your goal." The direct address puts emphasis on the words and amplifies the whole meaning of the song and the importance of love. The whole song is about love and how powerful it is and how you don't find love, it finds you. This again creates a personal relationship between the audience and the artist and it is though she is giving us a command to find love. Throughout the video natural lighting is used, however the lighting is a mix of low key and high key. When there are shots of windows in a dark room it is relatively high key, however when there is no window lighting, the shot is relatively low key. This suggests that love has brighter and darker parts but that is what makes love so special. On the other hand, at 3:30 there are fair lights, which come on as the song crescendo’s and this again amplifies the meaning of the song because it sounds much grander and has more meaning. The music video is mainly slow paced editing and this fits the slow tempo of the song. It makes the song seem very peaceful and calming instead of being abrupt and over the top; this emphasises the purity of love and amplifies the song. Throughout the music video there is cross cutting from close ups, mid shots or long shots of Gabrielle Aplin, to establishing shots of the deserted house. This suggests that the love is built around a home and this cretes stability, but once it is ruined, it continues to decay unless someone tries to fix it or save it. Additionally suggesting that the artist has experienced failed love and doesn't want the audience to feel this way. The final shot is an extreme long shot of Gabrielle Aplin playing her piano with the fairy lights and it looks really picturesque and beautiful and it then slowly fades out. The effect of this on the audience is that it suggests a light at the end of the tunnel, which shows beauty in love and so the final message is a positive one and overrules that love is indeed beautiful.

COLDPLAY - FIX YOU

24th september 2015.

'Fix You' is a performance based music video which is performed by Coldplay. The initial shot was an establishing shot of an undercarriage and then Chris begins to walk towards the camera in slow motion. The slow motion editing technique over exaggerates the sadness of the song, even though it does have a positive outcome. Up until 2:38 there is tracking of Chris as he is walking around the urban setting which is a relatable surrounding for many people, which means that a wide target audience should be able to relate to the music video. The majority of the lighting is low key and this therefore adds to the subdude mood of the video. The song is about someone being heartbroken and then another person coming along and 'fixing' their heart. As the song develops and the setting changes from urban to a live stage, there are numerous long shots of the 

musicians performing and playing their different instruments and this is to show off their talents to the audience, so they know that they aren't a fabricated band who aren't actually musicians. In the competitive music industry it is difficult to prove that a band is original and hasn't been adapted to fit a specification. Therefore by performing their song, Coldplay are proving that they deserve their space in the music industry. There are also close ups of the artists performing their songs and this exaggerates the emotion, which the artist is feeling and this is then reciprocated to the audience and they then understand how much the song means to the aritst. Regardless of the slow paced editing, there is still an element of fast paced editing from 1:30 - 1:37 and it cuts from a Long shot of Chris, to a mid shot, to a close up, to a mid shot, then a close up and then a long shot. The montage of different cuts allows the audience to see the emotion, body language, as well as the setting, all in a close proximity. This is very effective against the remainder of the slow paced editing. There are also cross cuts of Chris playing with fire and this amplifies the meaning between the song and the video. It links to the 'fixing you' as though he's playing with fire because fixing someone can go one of two ways; positively or negatively. Playing with fire generally always ends in disaster and therefore in this sense it shows that fixing someone involves taking a risk. On the other hand, after 2:40 minutes, the cuts turn fro slow paced to fast paced and this amplifies the song because the tempo speeds up, and coincidingly so do the cuts. The change from slow paced to fast paced has a seperate meaning from just the increased tempo. It also suggests that when someone begins fixing you they are unresponsive and everything is quite dull, but once you begin to open up, it all becomes a bit brighter and happier and the mood of the song reflects this. 

The whole song is natural lighting, however the natural lighting is low key and this reflects the indie/pop genre which the song fits. Many indie/pop songs are shot in natural lighting to suggest that it isn't about the music video, but it is mainly about the message, which is being portrayed and the musicians involved. They are not so much about telling a story, but letting the song tell its own story. 

The first six seconds of the music video is silent and this adds enigma and mystery to the music video because the audience doesn't know what is going to happen. Even though a typical audience thrives on mystery, it is unusual for an indie/pop music video to do this, it is typically a convention of a thriller film opening. However, the lack of sound at the beginning could be for the audience to reflect on what they think may happen in the music video and what the song may be about and how it may relate to them as a viewer. At 2:40 minutes Chris appears on stage and the video then goes from a really basic performance without any musicians, to the whole of Coldplay performing in front of a concert and this exaggerates the popularity of the band and their success. Finally, all of the musicians and singers wear black and have no fancy hairstyles or make up on and this seems to be a typical convention throughout all indie/pop music videos.

KATE NASH - FOUNDATIONS

28th september 2015.

Foundations is a performance and narrative based music video because there are shots of her performing, coincidingly there is an underlying message being shown throughout, through a narrative. The first five seconds of the music video has different shots of stationary objects including socks, two toothbrushes and shoes. This sets the setting as a home and shows the intimacy of the relationship that is going to be shown. There are numerous close ups of Kate performing her song and this shows her talent and the fact that she is the main singer of the song. In addition to this, there is a close up of the couple holding hands and then in the same shot, they begin to release the hold of each others hand. This shows that the couple are obviosuly going through troubles and their closeness is fading away. Similarly,

there is a close up of the couples feet as they are laying side by side in bed and she looks as though she is trying to push him away from her; again as though she is trying to be close to him but she's struggling. 33 seconds into the music video there is a long take of Kate in her kitchen, which is full of flowers and plants. She then walks over to the fridge and opens it up, revealing a load of beers, which is contrastingly very manly. This shows a contrast between male and female stereotypes, which is recognisable to the audience due to its relatability to real life. This shot lasts seven seconds and the length of the shot emphasises the importance of stereotypes to the audience. In addition to this there are cross cuts from the couple laying in bed to close ups of her performing her song. The use of cross cutting shows a gradual seperation of the couple laying in bed, which suggests hesitation from the female character and her uncertainty about the relationship. This makes the sequence of shots much more effective and instilled in the audiences mind. The majority of the cuts are neither slow paced nor fast paced, they are all a relatively normal speed and this allows the everyday life of a normal relationship to be portrayed; especially the bits, which annoy those in a relationship. 3:12 minutes there is a focus pull on the male character and this suggests that the male character is on the females mind, there is a shift of importance from the female to the male. 

1:09 minutes into the music video, the part of socks laying on the floor tie up together and 2:45 minutes into the video the watched intertwine. Additionally, 3:15 minutes in, the toothbrushes turn around and face each other. These different cuts are all metaphorical and are meant to represent the couple but as inanimate objects. This is also effective because it it satirical and suggests that even the individuals belongings are turning against each other and it's a powerful message being portrayed. In addition to the metaphorical watches getting closer, the lyrics which are amplified at this point are "I know I should forget but I can't." This suggests to the audience that she tries to leave and forget but she gets dragged back into the relationship and this is a relatable message, which many women can relate to; adding the element of personal relationships and surveillance into the music video. The audience want to keep watching until the end to find out what she finally decides to do. Finally at 3:25 minutes the metaphors explain themselves with the watches becomes unattached, the toothbrushes facing away from each other and the socks untangle. This suggests to the audience that what is happening to the inanimate objects is going to happen to the characters too. 

Throughout the music video natural, high key lighting is used and this is whilst the relationship is still in progress and then at the end of the music video, low key lighting is used and this is the part of the narrative where the female finally leaves the male. Even though it is positive for her, there is still an element of sadness and therefore the low key lighting amplifies the overall meaning of the song. However throughout the music video, bright colours are used and Kate wears yellow, which has connotations of happiness and cheerfullness. This suggests to the audience that she doesn't really mind that her relationship is coming to an end because everytime she tries to salvage it, it just gets ruined again. This is reitterated by the lyrics "Everytime that your upset and I smile." On the other hand, whilst they are laying bed and their feet are sticking out of the end of the bed, the artist is wearing red nail polish, which has connotations to danger and passion and this suggests to the audience that she enjoys the danger. Finally, the last shot is a close up of a door with a poster, which reads "don't fall for this" and this suggests to the audience that they shouldn't fall for stupidity or lies. It is an empowering song to women because it exaggerates the fact that holding onto foundations can be pointless if they constantly break. 

ELLIE GOULDING - HOW LONG WILL I LOVE YOU

30th september 2015.

How long will I love you is a performance and narrative based music video, which shows Ellie performing her song whilst playing out a love story throughout. The first ten seconds of the music video is credits, which outline who is in the music video, who directed it and the camera phone, which it was shot on. The black sans serif font stands out against the plain white background and this makes the writing the most important element to the shot, which makes the audience compelled to watch it. This shot then fades into a close up of Ellie Goulding's hands whilst she is playing the piano. This shot shows off her talent of playing the guitar and this is refreshing for the audience because many artists have a back up band, however she is doing it all by herself. 

This then cuts to a long shot of the back of Ellie Goulding whilst she is playing her piano and this then cuts to a side, mid shot of the star and this then reveals her true body language and facial expression, and this is 19 seconds into the song. This creates a slight mystery because the audience are unaware of how the star is feeling or what she looks like (unless they are familiar with the artist). However, as the mid, side shot of Ellie is occuring, her partner walks through the door and this cuts to a close up of him and a shot reverse shot takes place. from a close up to him, a close up of her and then back to a close up of him. When the close up of Ellie takes place,she looks as though she is giving a half-hearted smile and then the cut back to her boyfriend suggests that he is going to cheer her up. This is a stereotypical convention of relationships because when either partner is sad, it's the other partners responsibility to cheer them up. Therefore this shot it relatable to the audience and allows a personal relationship to be built between the audience and the characters. 0:24 seconds into the music video, there is a mid shot, landscaped shot of the male character and this allowed the left side of the shot to focus on the male and the right side of the shot to focus on the words written on the doorframe. "We like the hearts that go BOOM." These words suggest to the audience that the couple are in love and we see these words whilst there are no lyrics and so we can infer that the song will indeed be about love. In addition to this, the flat, which they are living in, looks quite untidy and not pristine, which is another stereotype of young couples living in the city. This again makes the video relatable to a young audience, as well as an older audience because they can reminisce about their young love. This makes the audience create personal relationships with the artist because they can relate, as well as surveillance taking place because the audience want to see the couple stay together and therefore watch the video until the end. 

This then cross cuts to a two shot of the couple in the car and they both look much happier and this suggests to the audience that relationships create happiness within one and other; therefore portraying a positive message to the audience. A high angle shot is used in the car to show the open top car and the retro interior of the car; suggesting that it is more special than an everyday car. This again suggests to the audience that the couple have special things, which are theirs to share and this shows the love that they share. The whole video is shot in high key lighting and this amplifies the happiness of the song, which suggests that they should love each other forever. 0:42 seconds into the music video, there is a cross cut from natural, high key lighting, to a black and white effect where Ellie is performing her song. The shot is a long shot and shows the audience the star playing her guitar whilst singing her song. The different lighting clearly distinguishes between performance and narrative and this makes the music video clearer and easier to understand. There is the a cross cut to 0:52 seconds into the music video, there is a close up of the male characters hands and this then straight cuts to a two shot of the couple, and then straight cuts to a close up of the females phone and this reveals the message from her partner. This then jump cuts to a mid shot of Ellie Goulding smiling at her partner and this is an eyeline match because it is as though the camera is in the eyes of the male actor. This looks effective because it is as though the male character is admiring the female and this reitterates the love within the relationship. A shot reverse shot also takes place in the music video as there is a close up of Ellie walking towards someone, then a close up of the old man she is walking to and then a two shot of Ellie kissing the old man. This shows the anticipation because we have no idea who the artist is walking toward, or what she is going to do by the shocked expression on the males face. The two shot then reveals the mystery and everything becomes clear to the audience again; eventhough we are unaware as to why she has just kissed an old man whose wife is stood right next to him.

2:20 minutes into the music video, there is a long take of the couple, which is a two shot. The two shot is also a mid shot and allows the audience to see the couples body language and facial expressions all in one shot. This is effective because we can clearly see how relaxed the couple are around each other, this allows the audience to relate with the on-screen actors because they clearly recognise personal relationships and this allows the audience to feel as though they have experienced similar feelings to the star.

The music video also relates to Richard Dyer's paradox of the star because in the music video she is 'both ordinary and extraordinary.' She is ordinary in the sense that she is in love and this is relatable to millions of people around the world and this allows personal identity to be found and also personal relationships, which creates a connection with audience, making the video relatable to everyday. Similarly, the music video may offer diversion from everyday life, due to the 'perfect relationship' being portrayed in the music video. However, Ellie is also extraordinary because she is a popstar and this is visible during the shots where she is playing her guitar and performing her song. This isn't relatable to many people, which makes her extraordinary. Regardless of this, the audience do not mind because she is still presented as ordinary in the music video. Similarly, Ellie is also present but absent at the same time because we discuss what she is doing and what she is wearing as though we are in close contact with her. However she is also absent because we do not actually know her and this is the reality of stars. Regardless of this, the audience still build personal relationships with the star because they like to be like her and to be seen as going through something similar to her. 

Finally, there is also a long, two shot towards the end of the music video and it is of an older couple looking lovingly at each other and then kissing. This then cuts back to a two shot of Ellie Goulding and her partner and this shows reflection and it's as though they are looking towards the future as a couple, due to the eye line match of the shot. This creates surveillance because the audience wonder whether the couple will make it to that age together, but due to the music video coming to a close, the audience will never know and this is enigmatic. 

FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE

Shake it out, 1st october 2015.

ED SHEERAN - YOU NEED ME, I DON'T NEED YOU 

7th october 2015.

Ed Sheeran is a worldwide phenomenon who only became recognised in recent years. He has become friends with major stars including Taylor Swift, Niall Horan and Courtney Cox. His song 'You need me, I don't need you' is about his refusal to conform by the music industry. He was told he had to dye his ginger hair and change his musical styles in order to succeed. This song was therefore him challenging the music industry and saying how they need him to make money, he can find someone else to sign him. Matthew Morgan is the main sign lyric dancer in the music video and this makes the music video a concept and performance based video because the video doesn't particularly have a narrative but the young boy is performing, showing a talent.

For the first three seconds of the music video, there is a spotlight, which gradually increases in size and reveals Matthew Morgan who does the lyric signing. This then cross cuts to a close up of Ed's guitar and him playing it, however we only see the guitar and his hand, not above his mid-drift or below his hips. The cross-cutting between the two different performers happen for the first ten seconds of the music video and this is to suggest to the audience that they are the two key performers in the video. Thirteen seconds into the music video there is an extreme close-up of Matthew's eyes, nose and top lip and the shot is slightlyhigh angle, as though the camera is looking down on him. This makes him look vulnerable even-though he also looks quite fierce and strong. The juxtaposed representation of the boy suggests that he acts strong but is alos vulnerable and this is shadowing Ed's initial representation into the music business; due to his quirqy looks. This then jump cuts to a mid shot of the boy and the camera gradually gets closer to the boy and this is during the first couple of lines of the song. This amplifies the song because the song is just getting started and doesn't require any fast paced cuts until the song gets faster in tempo. In addition to this, three minutes and four seconds into the music video there is a mid shot of a boy standing in a choir boy costume and this mid shot is shown as Ed sings " I’m still a choir boy in a Fenchurch tee " and the lyrics coincided with the mid shot of the choir boy amplifies the song and makes Ed seem as though he was once innocent. Being apart of a choir suggests purity and innocence, which aren't two representations that would normally be considered for Ed Sheeran, however with the black and white filter this suggests that the music industry ruined his innocence. 

The jump cuts additionally amplify the music video because they happen whenever the beat intensifies in the music video and this makes each cut stand out amongst the other cuts. It also amplifies the song as a whole due to the black and white filter because the black and white intensifies the whole music video and makes it more dramatic. The black and white also creates an enigmatic atmosphere because it is implicit and minimises what the audience can see. The setting is also unfurnished and this allows the audience to solely focus on the artist/character who is on the screen at the current time, which means there is only a shift of importance when the cut jumps to a different, individual artist. The fact that all of the artists/act are allowed their own individual shot suggests that Ed finds all artists individual and equally as important as the others. No artist is better than another, they simply showcase different talents and skills. One minute and fourty-three seconds into the music video, the first abstract prop is shown and it is a small buddha sculpture, which doesn't fit the theme of the music video, which is performance based. This shows the audience that the music video is also concept and the whole point of the abstract prop is to get the audience confused and questioning its appearance. This therefore makes the music video rememberable, which increases its popularity. Towards the middle of the music video there are cross cuts from Matthew to other dance performers and this again shows that many different people have talents and their talents are all original and Ed is trying to encourage originality and suggesting that you don't have to conforom to the stereotypical 'success 'criteria.' However, they are all performing in the same setting, which suggests that everybody has the same platform and oppurtunities, it's just how you use the chances you're given. 

Even-though there is a black and white filter on the music video, the audience can still identify the low key and the high key lighting. The difference between the high key and the low key lighting shows the amplification of the beat and tempo of the song, with the video. When the tempo or beat increases suddenly, it goes high key and then low key relatively quickly and this looks really effective. The lyrics "You need me man, I don't need you" are amplified because Matthew Morgan points down the camera as though he is directly addressing the record company that Ed Sheeran is referring to. This is effective because a 'finger point' is seen as passively aggressive because it isn't violent but signals tension between people. This therefore exaggerates the fact that Ed is very passionate about his raw talent and doesn't feel the need to conform to change. Direct address is regularly used thoughout the music video when Matthew Morgan looks down the camera when he is signing the lyrics and this looks quite intimidating, especially with the black and white filter, which is used. The initmidating look suggests to the audience that the record label shouldn't have crossed Ed because he may not look intimidating, but he can definitely hold his own and will be successful without them.

Overall, I personally wouldn't use black and white throughout the whole of my music video, however using it to go back in time may look effective and clearly distinguish between the past, present and future. In addition to this, I think amplifying the lyrics with what is happening on screen looks effective and I would therefore like to incorporate it into our music video. However, I find the concept element of the music video slightly bizzarre and would therefore rather focus on a narrative and performance based music video. 

ONE REPUBLIC - COUNTING STARS

8th october 2015.

THE KILLERS - WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG

October 12th 2015.

The Killers are an American indie-rock band who formed in 2001 and have released six albums since their formation and sold around 22 million albums worldwide. The music video is based around a couple who are in a relationship but obviously have their ups and downs and the male cheats on his partner. Cross cuts are commonly used because the cuts are not in chronological order. This creates intensity because the audience want to keep watching to see what is going to happen to the couple. It also creates an unsettling atmosphere because it isn't in chronological order and this keeps the audience intrigued and interested in the music video. It also prevents the audience from 

guessing the next cut because of the cross cutting; eventhough the audience can probably guess what will happen as the video progresses. The first 0:45 seconds of the music video have no lyrics and have a lot of establishing shots and close ups to build the setting of the music video and also create emotion between the characters. The male and female character both look quite distressed and upset and this creates engima because the audience are unaware of what has happened. 1:27 minutes into the music video, the guitar instrumental begins and the audience realise that the song is about to begin and the cuts begin to increase.

0:35 seconds into the music video there is an extreme, establishing long shot and this is used to show the femals vulnerability because she is at the top of the mountain with a sheer drop. In addition to this, the previous cuts add suspense to this because she looks distressed and emotional and seeing the height she is standing at, with the sheer drop in front of her, this makes her actions unpredictable and this makes the audience uneasy and also slightly concerned for the character. In contrast to this, 2:16 minutes into the music video there is a two shot of the couple, which is also an establishing shot and the juxtaposition between the two shots suggest that the music video has gone back to the past tense and that the remainder of the music video will explain the beginning of the music video. The two shot shows the couple looking loved up and happy and as though they are on top of the world due to them standing at the top of the church, with the mountainous backdrop. This suggests to the audience that they are oblivious to the rest of the world and this is emphasised by the two shot. 2:43 minutes into the music video there is a close up of the female who is being cheated on as she has just seen her partner in bed with another woman. As the shot is slightly longer, the female walks backwards and knocks a picture of her and her partner off of the wall and this suggests to the audience that their relationship is falling apart around them. Just before this shot there is an over the shoulder shot of over the females shoulder, as she is looking in the mirror, which reflects an image her partner cheating on her. This shows the females point of view, which exaggerates the heartbreak and emotion she is feeling because it is as though we are witnessing it too. This is effective and creates a stronger sense of emotion because we can see the shock in the males face and the upset in the females and this makes the audience feel emotional also. 15 seconds after the initial close up of the female, as she runs out of her house, there is another close up of her, however the lighting is no longer low key, but high key and this suggests to the audience that her world isn't over, if she is out of the relationship she can start again and be happier. 3:08 minutes into the music video there is a close up of the female looking over her shoulder, looking back at her home and there is then cross cuts back to her wedding day and then back to her crying. This amplifies the emotion because we can see how happy the female was, and now how upset she is. This makes the audience feel sorry for her and create a personal relationship with the female, especially if they have gone through a similar ordeal. Similairy, surveillance is created because the audience wants to continue to watch to find out how she deals with the situtation. Personal identity can also be discovered in the music video because if someone has experienced what the character has, they can now relate to the song and the ideal man who they wished they could have met. 

0:45 seconds into the music video there is a mid shot of the female leaning up against a cross and this suggests to the audience that the song will have elements of Religion in it. There is then a cut to a montage of flashbacks including her husband cheating on her as well as Religious symbols, which suggests that what has happened is going against her vows and she is wondering why God has let such destruction happen to her. This then straight cuts to two mid shots of her husband climbing through the mountains as though he is looking for his wife. This then cross cuts to a mid shot of his wifes waist and below and we can see that she has her hands clenched like fists and this suggests that she is infuriated. From the ensemble of these shots, the audience can infer that the male has done something wrong because it is as though he is trying to find her and she is extremely upset. The shots then speed up and there are more cross cuts of the male and the female and this then results in a two shot, which slowly pans outwards to an extreme long shot and intensifies the shot. There is then an extreme close up of the female and this shows the emotion on her face, especially in her eyes and the audience therefore sympathise with her. There is then a close up, two shot of the couple and this shows their closeness and the love they do have for each other. 2:37 minutes into the music video there are cross cuts from the man cheating on his wife, back to his wife and this creates intensity because the audience can see both characters points of view and sympathise with the female because she is witnessing her husband sleeping with another woman and the lyrics "when you were young" are repeated throughout this sequence of cuts and this suggests to the audience that men make mistakes due to their human nature and their immaturity, especially when they are younger because they don't realise what they have. The corss cuts, which appear before the male is cheating builds suspense because his wife is getting closer and closer and this creates an intense atmosphere because the audience knows what is going to happen, but the characters do not. This makes the audience seem superior because they know something that the characters don't know. 3:37 minutes towards the end of the music video, there is a shot reverse shot of the couple before the cheating and this shows the lust that the male feels towards the female and due to the extreme close ups of her body parts and the extreme close ups of the man biting his lips and looking at her, this suggests that he finds her sexually attractive too and this creates a personal connection between the two characters and it feels quite intimate between the audience and the characters; creating a personal relationship. 

Mise en Scene

All of the shots have an old fashioned lense look, which looks like a sepia effect has been used. This makes the video looks slightly older and imperfect, which reitterates the vulnerability of the relationship. The female in the relationship wears white throughout the music video and this exaggerates her innocence and vulnerability. Whereas the female who her husband is cheating with wears red and this suggests that he likes danger but that she is very passionate and determined to ruin their marriage and this is exaggerated when she pulls his head closer when the wife walks in the room. This adds to the sympathy felt towards the wife due to her innocence and purity. When the band are performing the cuts are normally low key lighting and this adds to the dull and disappointed mood of the music video. If it was high key lighting, this would contradict the rest of the music video, therefore the low key lighting supports the theme of the music video. When there is the cheating in the music video, the low key lighting is intense and creates an implicit view for the audience and allows the audience to focus on the male cheating and not look at the surroundings, this highlights the important element of the cut. However, when the female runs outside, it is high key lighting and this suggests that she has broken free from the heartbreak and disappointment and makes the audience feel a sense of hope for the character. 

The first forty five seconds of the music video has a strong natural sound of wind blowing and this creates atmosphere, especially with the occasional heartbeat running through the music video. This creates intensity because it is such a pounding sound and immitates the heartbeat of one of the characters; especially due to the rarity of it, which suggests the heart is beating slowly. Thirty-two seconds into the music video there is the sound of chimes and this is more relaxing and peaceful, which reduces the intensity of the music video. Thirteen seconds after this, the lyrics begin and they have no backbeat, just the return of the heartbeat sound and blowing wind, which creates intensity again. 1:27 minutes into the music the guitar begins and this suggests to the audience that the music video is about to begin. Therefore, there is around 1:30 minutes before the song actually begins and this is a common convention for the Killers music videos and therefore they are sticking to their convention, which creates originality. 2:53 minutes into the music video when the cheating has been exposed the sound goes from crescendo to dimminuendo and this intensifies the mood due to the reduced instrumental being played in the cut. However, after around ten seconds, it goes crescendo again and the pace of the cuts speed up and this is to highlight all of the couples good times. 4:54 minutes into the music video the pace of the music video slows down and this amplifies the music video because the crisis has been dealt with and the issues have been resolved, therefore the anticipation is no longer required. The slow pace gradually comes to an end. This is satisfying for the audience because they can clearly see the rollercoaster of the relationship and then the end result and that is a convention the audience enjoy.

JAMES BAY - LET IT GO

15th october 2015.

MUMFORD AND SONS

I will wait, 16th october 2015, fun - we are young, 4th november 2015.

LAUREN AQUILINA - FOOLS

5th november 2015.

LANA DEL REY

Summertime sadness , 6th november 2015.

NOVEMBER 10TH 2015

GEORGE EZRA

Blame it on me, 11th november 2015.

HOZIER 

Someone new.

BIRDY 

Skinny love, 14th november 2015.

LILY ALLEN 

MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

How to be a heartbreaker.

CHARLIE XCX

Arts and Justice

Analyzing music videos.

Description: This lesson provides strategies for analyzing music videos and the messages, themes, lyrics and symbols they use. The lesson is influenced by the the work presented in  Press Pause: Critically Contextualizing Music Video in Visual Culture and Art Education by Pamela G. Taylor. Thank you Pamela! http://www.questia.com/library/1P3-1261926661/press-pause-critically-contextualizing-music-video

LESSON PLAN: Grade: 9-12 or College Level Time:   3, 50 minute sessions (may vary depending on class) Introduction: This lesson introduces students to the process of critically examining music videos. Students will analyzing the symbols, content and lyrics present in a music video. This lesson asks students to become critical listeners and viewers and to discuss and share their thoughts with each other. The lesson can culminate with a class discussion, writing activity, or indiviual or group based video projects. California Visual Art Standards: 1.5 Analyze the material used by a given artist and describe how it use influences the meaning of the work 3.3 Indentify and describe trends in the visual arts and discuss how the issues of time, place and cultural influence are reflected in selected works of art. 4.1 Articulate how personal beliefs, cultural traditions, and current social, economic, and political contexts influence the interpretation of the meaning or message in a work of art. 4.3 Formulate and support a position regarding the aesthetic value of a specific work of art and change or defend that position after considering the views of others. 4.5 Employ the conventions of art criticism in writing and speaking about works of art. Student Learning Outcomes: Analyze the symbols and concepts present in a music videos. Analyze and interpret the lyrics in a song. Use and understand words such as semiotics and aesthetics and use them in discussion and in writing. Materials: 1. A computer with an internet connection for watching videos and finding lyrics. 2. LCD projector of TV with A/V capabilitiy 3. Video camera and editing software SEQUENCE OF INSTRUCTION: DAY 1- CLASS DISCUSSION/CLASS ACTIVITY 1. Teacher will introduce the word semiotics – the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication and aesthetic judgement – critical reflection on art, culture and nature 2. Teacher will show students a music video. Teacher will play video in its entirety. 3. When the video is over the teacher will asks students to give examples of symbols, metaphor or other messages present in the work (semiotics). The examples will be written on board/screen and students and teacher will discuss details relating to the symbols. 4. Teacher will also share the lyrics for the song and discuss any literary devices used and the connection between lyrics and images in the video. 5. Next the Teacher will ask students to critically reflect on the video and dicuss whether or not it is effective, entertaining, informative, beautiful, confusing, etc. Next the teacher will asks students to formulate a position based on their own perspecitve and analysis of the video. HOMEWORK: Students are to find 5 music videos and copy the links  for each or make a youtube playlist. Students can use any music videos but 1 must be a personal favorite, 1 must be a video they don’t understand, 1 must be a video they do not enjoy watching. Students also need to collect/find the lyrics for each of the videos. DAY 2 -CLASS DISCUSSION/CLASS ACTIVITY 1. Students will share links/youtube playlists with teacher. Teacher will pick one of these videos and ask the student to explain their reasons for choosing the video. Teacher and students will repeat this process with 2 more videos. 2. Students and teacher will discuss the video in terms of semiotics and aesthetic judgement using the questions provided below. 3. Students and teacher will also discuss the lyrics of the song and whether or not the visuals correspond to the lyrics and seek to find meanings and interpretations of the lyrics. 4. Teacher will make sure to note any forms of  sexism, racism and other forms of stereotyping that may be  found in the video. HOMEWORK: Students are to choose one of the videos shown in class and answer three questions from the MUSIC VIDEO QUESTIONS provided below. Each question must be from a different sub category and answered in a short paragraph format. Students will also attach the lyrics to the song. DAY 3- CLASS DISCUSSION/CLASS ACTIVITY 1. Teacher will asks introduce the basics of storyboarding. 2. Teacher will show students an example of how an existing music video uses storyboarding. Teacher will show a video and pause at pivotal moments and save these as screenshots. Then teacher will describe the camera angles, sets, characters and other details in these shots and develop a storyboard. 3. Teacher will then ask students to create a storyboard for any song they like, students may work in groups. 4. Students will work on creating a storyboard during class. HOMEWORK: Students will prepare a full color storyboard of their idea. If possible they may use traditional drawing/painting tools or use Adobe Photoshop to create collages. DAY 4- CLASS DISCUSSION/CLASS ACTIVITY 1. Teacher will asks students to create a music video. Using the previous discussions and written assignments as a guide, the students and teacher will work on developing the storyboard into a detail shot list. 2. Students will work on creating a music video based on their storyboard. 3. Depending on equipment available this video could be an animated digital video, a live action video, a green-screen enabled video or any combination of these. 4. Teacher will help facilitate the video production and provide feedback as necessary. HOMEWORK: Students will begin and complete their music video. RESOURCES: 1. Press Pause: Critically Contextualizing Music Video in Visual Culture and Art Education by Pamela G. Taylor. http://www.questia.com/library/1P3-1261926661/press-pause-critically-contextualizing-music-video 2. The Semiotics of Music Videos by Heidi Peeters http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/issue08/heidipeeters.htm 3. A concise article of music video semiotics prepared by Gina Miller 4. Storyboarding Basics (Ohio University) http://accad.osu.edu/womenandtech/Storyboard%20Resource/ 5. Student created 3D animation music video (Ohio University) http://accad.osu.edu/womenandtech/2012/index.html 6. Example of a student music video self analysis  http://www.slideshare.net/IzzieViolett/evaluation-of-music-video-project-media-3408086 7. A semiotic analysis of a Taylor Swift video http://frances2512.blogspot.com/2009/09/semiotic-analysis-of-music-video.html 8. Student created presentation on stereotypes in music videos http://prezi.com/lwbl8ac1-ssj/stereotypes-found-in-music-videos/

Questions for Discussion:

MUSIC VIDEO QUESTIONS

Warm Up Questions

• What does this video mean to you? What did you see in the video that made you come to this conclusion?
• Does thie video bring any questions to mind?
• What does this video say about you? Can you relate to the video?
• Do you see any symbols in this video? What do they symbolize?
• Why do you think that the artist used these symbols?
• What culture do these symbols resonate with? Would they symbolize the same thing in another culture? Do they resonate with you?

Social and Cultural Issues

• What does this video assume about its audience?
• Is the artist for or against anything?
• To what age group does this video appeal?
• Is the video racist or sexist?
• Does this video support any stereotypes?
• What political or social issue does this video bring to mind?
• Does the video use any historical video/film clips? How does it use the clips?

Formal Qualities and Analyses

• What process do you think was used to create some of the images in the video? What software and editing program do you think they used?
• Describe how the color in the video is used to portray certain emotions, feelings or meanings?
• Write a visual description of a particular scene or image in the video.

Interpretation

• What does this video say to you?
• What does it say about the artist?
• Is there anything of which this video reminds you? Is there anything in the video that reminds you of something you have studied in school?

Artist Intent

• Do you see any works of art in this video? Do you believe the artist was influenced by someone else?
• Do you see any product placement in the video? Is this video selling a certain product?
• Do you think your interpretation of this video is what the artist intended? Does it matter?
• Can we always know an artist’s intent? Is an artist’s intent, when available, always relevant to the meaning of the video? To a work of art?
• Can an artist mean to express one thing, but then express more than that, or something different from that?
• Should the artist’s stated intent be the final arbiter when determining the accuracy of an interpretation?
• Do you like this video? Why or why not?
• What are the most effective parts or aspects of this work of art?
• How would you persuade others to appreciate this work of art as much as you do?
• How could you convince someone to appreciate an artwork that they thin is not could? How could you counter this person’s argument?

Project Ideas:

• Create a music video or animation for a song of your choice. Consider what we have discussed in class to make sure you are aware of the symbols you are using and how this affects the finished work.
• Remake a preexisting video. Take a video that already exists and re-imagine the video and/or challenge the symbols used in the video.
• Write a 3 page paper where you clearly examine a music video from start to finish. Discuss the characters, the role they play and what you believer is the message in the video. Include screenshots in your paper.
• Find a video that you find offensive or challenging. Closely examine the reason why this video affects your sensibilities. Remix/reedit the video to solve the problems you have with it.
• Find a video that you are inspired by. Examine the reasons why it inspires you, what elements can you recreate or use in your own work? Create a video based upon your research.
• Create a presentation that compares/contrasts and identifies stereotypes in different music videos. How are women represented? How are men represented? How are LGTBQ people represented? Are there any people of color (non-white people) in the video? How are the people of color represented?
• Critique Strategies →

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111 Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Music is a universal language that has the power to evoke emotions, inspire creativity, and connect people from all walks of life. Whether you are a music student looking for essay topics, or simply someone who is passionate about music and wants to explore different aspects of it, we have compiled a list of 111 music essay topic ideas and examples to help you get started.

• The evolution of hip hop music in American culture
• The impact of technology on the music industry
• The influence of classical music on modern compositions
• The role of music in shaping identity and cultural heritage
• The psychology of music and its effects on the brain
• The power of protest music in social movements
• The significance of music festivals in contemporary society
• The role of music therapy in mental health treatment
• The representation of gender and sexuality in popular music
• The history and impact of rock and roll music
• The intersection of music and fashion in pop culture
• The globalization of music and its implications on cultural exchange
• The role of music education in fostering creativity and critical thinking
• The impact of social media on music promotion and distribution
• The relationship between music and politics in the 21st century
• The evolution of music genres over the decades
• The influence of African music on Western popular music
• The role of music in film and television soundtracks
• The impact of streaming services on the music industry
• The representation of race and ethnicity in music videos
• The role of music in religious and spiritual practices
• The history of music censorship and its implications on freedom of expression
• The impact of music on memory and cognitive function
• The representation of mental health issues in music lyrics
• The role of music in promoting social justice and equality
• The impact of music on consumer behavior and marketing strategies
• The influence of technology on music production and composition
• The relationship between music and dance in different cultures
• The impact of music on emotions and mood regulation
• The significance of live music performances in the digital age
• The role of music in creating a sense of community and belonging
• The representation of gender stereotypes in music lyrics
• The influence of music on language development and communication skills
• The impact of music on physical health and well-being
• The role of music in expressing and processing emotions
• The portrayal of love and relationships in music lyrics
• The influence of music on fashion trends and style
• The impact of music on social behavior and interpersonal relationships
• The significance of music in rituals and ceremonies
• The role of music in shaping national identity and patriotism
• The representation of violence and conflict in music lyrics
• The influence of music on memory and learning abilities
• The impact of music on mood regulation and stress management
• The role of music in promoting environmental awareness and sustainability
• The portrayal of social issues and injustices in music lyrics
• The influence of music on political activism and social movements
• The significance of music in cultural celebrations and traditions
• The role of music in fostering empathy and compassion
• The representation of mental health struggles in music lyrics
• The influence of music on consumer behavior and purchasing decisions
• The role of music in promoting diversity and inclusivity
• The portrayal of love and relationships in music videos
• The impact of music on cognitive development and problem-solving skills
• The significance of music in personal growth and self-discovery
• The role of music in promoting peace and reconciliation
• The representation of gender roles and stereotypes in music videos
• The influence of music on memory retention and recall
• The impact of music on emotional intelligence and social skills
• The role of music in promoting cultural exchange and understanding
• The portrayal of mental health issues in music videos
• The influence of music on physical coordination and motor skills
• The significance of music in spiritual practices and rituals
• The role of music in fostering creativity and innovation
• The representation of social injustices and inequalities in music lyrics
• The impact of music on mood regulation and emotional well-being
• The influence of music on decision-making and problem-solving abilities
• The role of music in promoting social cohesion and unity
• The portrayal of addiction and substance abuse in music videos
• The significance of music in fostering empathy and compassion
• The role of music in promoting mental health and well-being
• The impact of music on physical health and stress management
• The representation of social issues and injustices in music videos
• The significance of music in fostering creativity and innovation
• The portrayal of mental health struggles in music lyrics
• The impact of music on memory retention and recall

These are just a few examples of the countless music essay topics that you can explore. Whether you are interested in the history of music, its cultural significance, its impact on society, or its psychological effects, there is a wide range of topics to choose from. So pick a topic that resonates with you, conduct thorough research, and let your passion for music shine through in your writing. Happy writing!

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Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

A framework for using popular music videos to teach media literacy.

Jordan M. McClain Drexel University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA [email protected]

This article discusses the use of popular music videos as a tool for teaching media literacy. First, the article addresses the importance of music videos as popular culture, what other music video research has examined, and what features make music videos a good fit for in-class work investigating media and popular culture. Then the article details a single-class activity for introducing and teaching media literacy through the use of music videos. To achieve this objective, the article also proposes a set of original music video-specific discussion questions. Finally, a particular music video is considered to illustrate possible results of this activity and the broader issues that may arise from class discussion.

Communication, Media, Media Studies, Popular Culture, Pedagogy, New Media, Digital Media, Media Literacy, Media Education, Music Videos

Although popular music videos have long been criticized for their superficiality, fast edits, and sensational content, features like these help make the videos an excellent teaching tool, effective for getting students’ attention and exploring broad issues. Many educators may be skeptical about or may have never thought about the benefits of using music videos in the classroom—thus the shortage of research on this approach. Cayari wrote about students creating music videos in order to learn music and technology skills.  Maskell discussed the use of music videos for teaching English, saying the content has “huge potential for use across the entire English curriculum” (54). There is still, however, much to uncover about the myriad possible uses of music videos as a pedagogical instrument.

With a focus on popular music videos, this essay discusses their importance, describes an activity using them to teach media literacy skills, offers some new music video-specific ideas for introductory media literacy exercises, and shares example results of the activity. This information may appeal to a wide range of educators, especially media and popular culture scholars teaching undergraduate college courses such as Media and Society, Media Literacy, or Introduction to Popular Culture.

Although the pedagogical value of music videos remains formally under-recognized, many have thoroughly established why music videos are an important and potent way to learn about life around the globe. “Music television deserves serious attention from students of popular culture” (Goodwin and Grossberg ix), proclaimed the introduction of Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader, the influential collection edited by Frith, Goodwin, and Grossberg. Supporting this call to study music videos, Austerlitz saw them as a “fascinating oddity” (1) and a “compelling marker of cultural history” (1). He concluded that the music video’s “triumphs render it a subject worthy of deeper study and attention” (1). In summarizing the state of music video research and demonstrating why they are more than just entertainment, Straw wrote, “music videos are increasingly seen as elements within complex assemblages of image and sound that circulate the world and are recombined within a variety of diasporic media, from satellite television networks through DVD and Internet video clip sites” (3176).

Consideration of certain music video research trends indicates their diverse potential. One major trend adopts a media effects perspective and examines how music videos influence the ways audiences think and behave, especially younger groups like adolescents, teens, or college students. Studies have looked at music video effects in terms of sex, such as how kids imitate the content (Ey and Cupit), how they sext (Van Ouytsel, Ponnet, and Walrave), and what their attitudes are toward sex (Aubrey, Hopper, and Mbure; Beentjes and Konig; Kistler and Lee; Zhang, Miller, and Harrison). Others have researched music videos’ effects on perceptions of rape (Burgess and Burpo; Sprankle, End, and Bretz). There is also much work on the influence of music videos on how people think about gender-specific ideas related to misogyny (van Oosten, Peter, and Valkenburg) or bodily self-perception (Mischner et al.).

Overlapping with work that emphasizes effects, there is a trend of research interested in representational patterns in music videos. Gender often emerges as a main focal point, such as Wallis’s content analysis of differences in gender displays. Many have also tied race to genre, with rap being a dominant line of inquiry (Balaji; Conrad, Dixon, and  Zhang; Zhang, Dixon, and Conrad). Overall, work on representation has spanned topics like sexual objectification (Aubrey and Frisby; Frisby and Aubrey), sexuality (Turner), and violence (Aikat; Smith and Boyson; Thaller and Messing).

Such trends show the utility of music videos in media research, popular culture studies, and beyond. In addition, music videos are characterized by a combination of features that make them an ideal fit for in-class activities about media and popular culture:

• They are conventionally short, compared to a full movie or television episode.
• They are often familiar, which benefits group discussion because many students bring background knowledge.
• They are common online, which makes it simple for instructors to find multiple good examples.
• They are easy to access, such as the free official content available on video-sharing sites like YouTube or hosting services like Vevo.
• They are often controversial, working as a compelling catalyst for critical discussion and thus able to help students identify important issues, then articulate their views on social or political matters.
• They are commonly imitated on the Web, as evidenced by remakes, parodies, satires, and mash-ups that have become a common way for lovers and haters—including amateurs, professionals, and people in between—to express themselves online. 1
• They are popular culture, as a collective form and as individual artifacts, which gives them instant student appeal and significance as a teaching tool.  

Activity: Popular Music Videos and Media Literacy

The following activity is a productive way to use music videos to introduce and teach media literacy. This exercise is intended to occur in class and requires the instructor’s use of an Internet-connected device that can play music videos viewable by the whole class at once (e.g., via projector or on a large monitor). Objectives include these:

• The exercise will (A) strategically use music videos as a teaching tool, (B) demonstrate the importance of critical thinking about music videos, and (C) demonstrate the importance of critical thinking about popular culture.
• Students will (A) strengthen media literacy skills and (B) increase comprehension of popular music videos as a significant form of entertainment media.  

Preparation: Prior to class, carefully select a popular music video accessible online and useful as a teaching tool. Billboard charts and YouTube’s “Popular on YouTube” section are helpful starting points. The instructor should select something that will resonate with students; this can be based on recency or the interests and personalities of the class. I suggest watching the video many times before class. It is also essential to research the video’s production background and popular reception. Immediately before class begins, it is smart to prepare the music video for easy start-up and test all necessary technology—video connection, audio levels, video start function, video end point.

Execution: Once class begins, start the activity by announcing its order (i.e., discuss media literacy, watch music video, analyze video alone and then together) and expected outcomes (i.e., enhance media literacy comprehension and skills).

Part 1: Introduce Media Literacy and Music Video-Specific Follow-Up Questions

First, I explain media literacy and the following five key questions of media literacy, using visual aids like PowerPoint slides and the Center for Media Literacy’s website, medialit.org:

• Authorship: “Who created this message?”
• Format: “What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?”
• Audience: “How might different people understand this message differently than me?”
• Content: “What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?”
• Purpose: “Why is this message being sent?”

As justified in the rationale above, we then briefly discuss why music videos are media content worthy of critical thought.

Next, to successfully analyze popular music videos and expand on the preexisting five key questions of media literacy, I propose the following set of original follow-up questions that are music video-specific—four follow-ups for each of the main questions—to help prompt critical thought and advance media literacy about popular music videos:

• Who is explicitly identified as a creator?
• Who created the song?
• Who created the music video?
• What are some major components of the music video that people created?
• What techniques are used in the music?
• What techniques are used in the music video?
• How does this music video seem influenced by popular culture?
• How has this music video seemingly influenced popular culture?
• Who do you think are some target audiences for this music video?
• What components of the music video indicate its target audience?
• What parts of the music video seem open to interpretation?
• What parts of the music video seem controversial? To whom?
• How does the music video convey this?
• How do you think this relates to the music video’s creators?
• How do you think this relates to the music video’s target audience?
• What may have caused these representations and omissions?
• Why was this music created?
• Why was the music video created?
• Why was the music video created for this format? (I.e., cable television, the Web, DVD, etc.)
• Who would benefit from the music video’s popularity?  

Part 2: Watch a Music Video

After focusing on media literacy questions, introduce the music video by identifying the song and performer. I find it useful to informally survey how many students know the song or artist and how many like the song or artist. It is crucial to establish the significance of studying this artifact. For instance, instructors should cite facts about awards the artist or song has won, sales information like albums or singles sold, rankings from Billboard/Nielsen chart data, concert grosses, YouTube views, and social media metrics (e.g., how many likes or followers an artist has online). It is best also to show students visuals like a Twitter feed or Billboard.com article to support those claims. This will help students recognize the significance of putting popular culture under the microscope—this is not just a song but a social phenomenon that deserves to be studied, and the class is learning a system for accomplishing that.

Here it is helpful to notify students that after watching the video once, they will need to answer and discuss the five media literacy questions and music video-specific follow-ups. Thus, as they watch, students should think about answers to the questions, which they may wish to quickly review before watching the video at this point.

Part 3: Practice Media Literacy Skills by Discussing the Music Video

Solo: After watching the video, students should individually write answers to each media literacy question and the follow-ups. When dealing with time constraints for this in-class activity, I advise students to focus on answers that come easiest, instead of straining to complete all questions (i.e., quality over quantity). This is a good time to encourage optional Internet use for those with enabled devices. Answers are possible with only a pencil and paper, but Web-based research will probably strengthen responses.

Small groups: After the solo work, students form pairs or triads and share their findings with each other. They should consider what they learned from peers to expand their answer list and prepare for a full-class discussion.

As a class: After the small group work, reconvene as a class and watch the video for a second and final time. This provides a chance to see more, helps solidify what students learned so far, and refreshes memories for the following discussion.

I then lead a Q&A through each of the five key media literacy questions and follow-ups. Instructors should seek many answers to each question, solicit like and unlike observations across the group, and play devil’s advocate to help students form their opinions.

Activity Results

This activity results in valuable dialogues, which will vary based on the video(s) examined. One highly recommended music video to choose for this activity is Katy Perry’s 2013 hit, “Roar” (Lipshutz; Perry, “Katy Perry – Roar”) 2 . Using this video would give the instructor a chance to talk about Perry’s many Grammy nominations, MTV Awards, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, and Guinness World Records. The instructor could also discuss her remarkable billion-plus views that place this song in the top ten most-viewed YouTube and Vevo videos (Jang; Lane; “Vevo Top Videos”) and made Perry “the first artist to ever have two videos with over 1 Billion [ sic ] views” (“Katy Perry – Vevo”; “Roar10xCertified”). Students respond well to these kinds of arguments for a video’s significance and facts like Perry’s status as the most-followed Twitter user—with over 75 million followers, she ranks above people like Justin Bieber and President Obama (Perry, “Tweets”; “Twitter Top 100”).

Discussing Perry’s “Roar” video would likely cause students to answer the media literacy questions and follow-ups in ways that lead to fascinating conversations about the major media literacy concepts. “Authorship” would relate to the song being co-written by a team of professional hit makers including Max Martin, Dr. Luke, and Bonnie McKee (Hampp; Seabrook). “Format” would connect to sexualization, familiar pop song ingredients, and the use of visual effects. “Audience” would lead to concerns about young fans, PETA’s objections to the video’s use of animals (Boardman; Palmer), or the video’s twist ending. “Content” would tie to portrayals of selfies, makeup use, and heterosexuality or sexual orientation. “Purpose” would relate to product sales, promotional culture, the modern music industry, free YouTube content, conspicuous use of Nokia merchandise, and celebrity branding.

This kind of popular music video analysis, based on the five key media literacy questions and follow-ups, enables discussion of many broad issues. In particular, this includes:

• How race, class, age, and ability are represented in music videos.
• How gender, sex, sexuality, and sexism are treated in music videos.
• How beauty norms are reflected in music videos; how this impacts body image, self-esteem, or eating disorders outside music videos.
• How celebrities appear in music videos; how musicians are positioned as celebrities in music videos.
• What music videos tell us about censorship, evolving moral standards, political correctness, and cultural taboos.
• How product placement shapes music videos.
• How genre affects music videos.
• How new and digital media impact music videos.

By using this activity, I have found that students thoroughly enjoy practicing and developing critical thinking skills through the study of everyday media and popular culture. The classroom becomes a space where fun and learning can logically and productively intersect. Students become more consistently engaged with class topics and discussions, searching for such intersection. Their media literacy skills improve—instantly and long-term—through the type of practice and collaborative critique that this exercise facilitates. As a result, students are more sensitive, informed, and skilled critical consumers of entertainment media.

This essay expands on general media literacy principles and produces original music video-specific questions, enabling systematic use of music videos as effective resources for teaching media literacy and critical thinking about media and popular culture. The five key media literacy questions are a valuable framework for studying popular music videos and exploring the broader issues they raise. Without the media literacy framework, this exercise might allow only surface-level scrutiny. Using the media literacy foundation strengthens, deepens, and formalizes this learning process, enhancing student comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of popular music videos as important media content.

The in-class activity described in this essay is ideal for undergraduate courses, but can be adapted by prefacing the work with level-appropriate lectures about media and popular culture for a variety of potential student audiences, such as tweens, pre-college teens, or graduate students. One alternative to the in-class activity is to remake it as a written test, which would benefit from a rubric used to grade answers. For example, instructors may choose to teach the five key media literacy questions first, then, on the same or a different day, show a music video and require students to answer the five questions and music video-specific follow-ups as a test of knowledge and skills. Other possibilities include a student presentation (individuals or groups pick a modern video, argue for its significance, analyze its content using the music video-specific follow-ups, and consider the implications); a reflection paper (students address the extent to which media literacy about music videos will impact how they think about such entertainment); or a self-produced video essay (students use the media literacy questions and music video-specific follow-ups as prompts for a prepared, recorded oral critique of a popular music video; bonus points to those who share their video essay on YouTube).

Popular music videos have many educational uses, which span disciplines. These videos are excellent instruments, effective for getting students’ attention, and helpful for teaching about many complex and meaningful concepts. Educators should therefore embrace and experiment with music videos as a powerful teaching tool.

1. By way of illustration, consider the many humorous takeoffs on The Black Eyed Peas song, “My Humps,” which inspired popular online videos by alt-rock celebrity Alanis Morissette, gender-role-defying electronic musician Peaches, and pre-teen remix video YouTube-star MattyBRaps.

2. Here are some other recommended popular music videos that work well for this activity: Michael Jackson, “Thriller”; Madonna, “Erotica”; Shania Twain, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”; One Direction, “What Makes You Beautiful”; Robin Thicke, “Blurred Lines”; Pharrell Williams, “Happy”; Taylor Swift, “Shake it Off”; Drake, “Hotline Bling.”

Works Cited

Aikat, Debashis. “Streaming Violent Genres Online: Visual Images in Music Videos on BET.com, Country.com, MTV.com, and VH1.com.” Popular Music and Society 27.2 (2004): 221-240. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Aubrey, Jennifer Stevens, and Cynthia M. Frisby. “Sexual Objectification in Music Videos: A Content Analysis Comparing Gender and Genre.” Mass Communication and Society 14.4 (2011): 475-501. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Aubrey, Jennifer Stevens, K. Megan Hopper, and Wanjiru G. Mbure. “Check That Body! The Effects of Sexually Objectifying Music Videos on College Men’s Sexual Beliefs.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 55.3 (2011): 360-79. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Austerlitz, Saul. Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video, from the Beatles to the White Stripes . New York: Continuum, 2007. Print.

Balaji, Murali. “Owning Black Masculinity: The Intersection of Cultural Commodification and Self-Construction in Rap Music Videos.” Communication, Culture & Critique 2.1 (2009): 21-38. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Beentjes, Johannes W. J., and Ruben P. Konig. “Does Exposure to Music Videos Predict Adolescents’ Sexual Attitudes?” European Scientific Journal 9.14 (2013): 1-20. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Boardman, Madeline. “PETA: Katy Perry’s ‘Roar” Music Video is Cruel to Animals.” HuffingtonPost.com . The Huffington Post, 15 Sept. 2013. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Burgess, Melinda C. R., and Sandra Burpo. “The Effect of Music Videos on College Students’ Perceptions of Rape.” College Student Journal 46.4 (2012): 748-763. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Cayari, Christopher. “Using Informal Education Through Music Video Creation.” General Music Today 27.3 (2014): 17-22. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Center for Media Literacy. “Five Key Questions Form Foundation for Media Inquiry: Keywords and Guiding Questions Help Build Habits of Critical Thinking.” MediaLit.org. Center for Media Literacy, n.d.: Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Conrad, Kate, Travis L. Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. “Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 53.1 (2009): 134-56. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Ey, Lesley-Anne, and C. Glenn Cupit. “Primary School Children’s Imitation of Sexualised Music Videos and Artists.” Children Australia 38.3 (2013): 115-123. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Frisby, Cynthia M., and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey. “Race and Genre in the Use of Sexual Objectification in Female Artists’ Music Videos.” Howard Journal of Communications 23.1 (2012): 66-87. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Goodwin, Andrew, and Lawrence Grossberg. Introduction. Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader . Ed. Simon Frith, Andrew Goodwin, and Lawrence Grossberg. New York: Routledge, 1993. ix-xi. Print.

Hampp, Andrew. “Katy Perry, ‘Roar’: Track Review.” Billboard.com . Billboard, 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Jang, Meena. “YouTube’s 10th Anniversary: Watch the Top 10 Most Viewed Videos to Date.” Billboard.com . Billboard, 14 Feb. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

“Katy Perry – Vevo Certified Artist.” Vevo.com . Vevo, 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Kistler, Michelle E., and Moon J. Lee. “Does Exposure to Sexual Hip-Hop Music Videos Influence the Sexual Attitudes of College Students?” Mass Communication and Society 13.1 (2009): 67-86. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Lane, Laura. “These Are the Most-Watched YouTube Videos Ever – Have You Seen Them All?” People.com. Time Inc., 30 Apr. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

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Author Bio:

Dr. Jordan M. McClain is Assistant Teaching Professor of Communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. He enjoys researching and teaching about framing in music journalism, celebrity, the intersection of television and music culture, and consumer culture. For the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA) he serves on the executive board,  as Music area co-chair,  and as Journalism and News Media area chair. For the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA), he chairs the Professional Development area.

Social media:

Academia.edu: https://drexel.academia.edu/JordanMcClain LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-m-mcclain-72304163 Twitter: https://twitter.com/j_mcclain

Reference Citation:

McClain, Jordan M. “ A Framework for Using Popular Music Videos to Teach Media Literacy.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy  3.1 (2016). Web and Print.  

McClain, J. M. (2016).   A framework for using popular music videos to teach media literacy.  Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 3 (1).  http://journaldialogue.org/issues/a-framework-for-using-popular-music-videos-to-teach-media-literacy/ 

Tags: Communication , Digital Media , Media , Media Education , Media Literacy , media studies , Music Videos , New Media , pedagogy , Popular Culture

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