video essay format

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. 

Related Posts

• Stanley Kubrick Directing Style Explained →
• A Filmmaker’s Guide to Nolan’s Directing Style →
• 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 →
• Visualize your scenes with intuitive online shotlist software →

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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Visual Rhetoric

Video essay resource guide.

PAR 102 (M-Th, 9 AM- 5 PM) Fine Arts Library Media Lab (same hours as FAL) PCL Media Lab (same hours as PCL)

About video essays

What are they.

“The video essay is often described as a form of new media, but the basic principles are as old as rhetoric: the author makes an assertion, then presents evidence to back up his claim. Of course it was always possible for film critics to do this in print, and they’ve been doing it for over 100 years, following more or less the same template that one would use while writing about any art form: state your thesis or opinion, then back it with examples. In college, I was assured that in its heart, all written criticism was essentially the same – that in terms of rhetorical construction, book reviews, music reviews, dance reviews and film reviews were cut from the same cloth, but tailored to suit the specific properties of the medium being described, with greater emphasis given to form or content depending on the author’s goals and the reader’s presumed interest.”

Matt Zoller Seitz on the video essay .

what makes a good video essay? 

Tony Zhou on how to structure a video essay

Kevin B. Lee on what makes a video essay “ great “

why should we use them? what are their limits?

Kevin B. Lee’s  experimental/artistic pitch for video essays

Kevin B. Lee’s mainstream pitch for video essay

“Of all the many developments in the short history of film criticism and scholarship, the video essay has the greatest potential to challenge the now historically located text-based dominance of the appraisal and interpretation of film and its contextual cultures…”

Andrew McWhirter argues that t he video essay has significant academic potential in the Fall 2015 issue of  Screen

“Importantly, the [new] media stylo does not replace traditional scholarship. This is a new practice beyond traditional scholarship. So how does critical media differ from traditional scholarship and what advantages does it offer? First, as you will see with the works in this issue, critical media demonstrates a shift in rhetorical mode. The traditional essay is argumentative-thesis, evidence, conclusion. Traditional scholarship aspires to exhaustion, to be the definitive, end-all-be-all, last word on a particular subject. The media stylo, by contrast, suggests possibilities-it is not the end of scholarly inquiry; it is the beginning. It explores and experiments and is designed just as much to inspire as to convince…”

Eric Fadden’s “ A Manifesto for Critical Media “

Adam Westbrook’s “ The Web-Video Problem: Why It’s Time to Rethinking Visual Storytelling from the Bottom Up “

Video essayists and venues

Matt Zoller Seitz (various venues) A writer and director by trade, Zoller Seitz is nonetheless probably best known as a prominent American cultural critic.  He’s made over 1000 hours of video essays and is generally recognized as a founder of the video essay movement in high-brow periodicals.  A recognized expert on Wes Anderson, Zoller Seitz is also notable because he often mixes other cinematic media (especially television) into his analysis, as in the above example, which doubles as an experiment in the absence of voiceover.

Various contributors, Press Play Co-founded by Matt Zoller Seitz and Ken Cancelosi,  Press Play  (published by Indiewire)   is one of the oldest high-brow venues for video essays about television, cinema, and other aspects of popular culture.

Various contributors, Keyframe   (A Fandor online publication) Fandor’s video essay department publishes work from many editors (what many video essayists call themselves) on and in a range of topics and styles.  Check it out to get an idea of all that things a video essay can do!

Various contributors, Moving Image Source A high-brow publication for video essays.

Tony Zhou, Every Frame a Painting The master of video essays on filmic form, Tony’s arguments are clean, simple, and well-evidenced.  Look to Tony as an example of aggressive and precise editing and arrangement.  He’s also an excellent sound editor–pay attention to his choices and try out some of his sound-mixing techniques in your essay.

Adam Johnston, Your Movie Sucks (YMS) Although an excellent example of epideictic film rhetoric, this channel is a great example of what  not  to do in this assignment (write a movie review, gush about how good/bad you think a movie is, focus on motifs or narrative content instead of  film form  as the center of your argument).  What you  can  learn from Adam is a lot about style.  Adam’s delivery, pacing, and editing all work together to promote a mildly-disinterested-and-therefore-credible ethos through a near-monotone, which I’ll affectionately dub the “Daria” narratorial ethos.

Adam Westbrook, delve.tv Adam Westbrook is part of an emerging group of professional video essayists and delve.tv is his version of a visual podcast.  Using the video essay form, Adam has developed a professional public intellectual ethos for himself through skillful overlay of explanation/interpretation and concept.  Check out Westbrook’s work as a really good example of presenting and representing visual concepts crucial to an argument.  He’s a master at making an argument in the form of storytelling, and he uses the video essay as a vehicle for that enterprise.

:: kogonada (various venues) If you found yourself wondering what the auteur video essay might look like, :: kogonada is it.  I like to call this “expressionist” video essay style.  Kogonada is the ultimate minimalist when it comes to voiceover/text over–its message impossibly and almost excessively efficient.  Half of the videos in his library are simple, expertly-executed supercuts , highlighting how heavily video essays rely on the “supercut” technique to make an argument.  Crafting an essay in this style really limits your audience and may not be a very good fit for the constraints of assignment (very “cutting edge,” as we talked about it in class), but you will probably draw inspiration from ::kogonada’s distinct, recognizable style, as well as an idea of what a video essay can do at the outer limits of its form.

Lewis Bond,  Channel Criswell Narrating in brogue-y Northern English, Bond takes his time, releasing a very carefully-edited, high-production video essay once every couple of months.  He’s a decent editor, but I feel his essays tend to run long, and I feel rushed by his narration at times.  Bond also makes a useful distinction between video essays and analysis/reviews on his channel–and while most of his analysis/reviews focus on film content (what you don’t want to imitate), his video essays stay pretty focused on film technique (what you do).  Hearing the same author consciously engage in two different modes of analysis might help you better understand the distinction between the two, as well.

Jack Nugent,  Now You See It Nugent’s brisk, formal analysis is both insightful and accessible–a good example of what it takes to secure a significant following in the highly-competitive Youtube marketplace.  [That’s my way of slyly calling him commercial.] Nugent is especially good at pairing his narration with his images.  Concentrate and reflect upon his simple pairings as you watch–how does Nugent help you process both sets of information at the pacing he sets?

Evan Puschak, The Nerdwriter Nerdwriter  is a great example the diversity of topics a video essay can be used to craft an argument about.  Every week, Puschak publishes an episode on science, art, and culture.  Look at all the different things Puschak considers visual rhetoric and think about how he’s using the video essay form to make honed, precisely-executed arguments about popular culture.

Dennis Hartwig and John P. Hess,  FilmmakerIQ Hartwig and Hess use video essays to explain filmmaking technique to aspiring filmmakers.  I’ve included the channel here as another example of what  not  to do in your argument, although perhaps some of the technical explanations that Hartwig and Hess have produced might help you as secondary sources.  Your target audience (someone familiar on basic film theory trying to better understand film form) is likely to find the highly technical, prescriptive arguments on FilmIQ boring or alienating. Don’t focus on technical production in your essay (how the film accomplishes a particular visual technique using a camera); rather, focus on how the audience interprets the end result in the film itself; in other words, focus on choices the audience can notice and interpret–how is the audience interpreting the product of production?  How often is the audience thinking about/noticing production in that process?

Kevin B. Lee (various venues) A good example of the older, high-brow generation of video essayists, Kevin’s collection of work hosted on his Vimeo channel offers slow, deliberate, lecture-inspired readings of film techniques and form.  Note the distinct stylistic difference between Kevin’s pacing and someone like Zhou or Lewis.  How does delivery affect reception?

Software Guides

How to access Lynda tutorials (these will change your life)

Handbrake and MakeMKV  (file converters)

Adobe Premiere  (video editing)

Camtasia  (screen capture)

File management

Use your free UTBox account to upload and manage your files.  Make sure you’ve got some sort of system for tracking and assembling everything into your video editing software.   UTBox has a 2 terabyte limit (much higher than Google Drive) and is an excellent file management resource for all sorts of academic work.

Adobe Premiere saves versions with links to your video files, so it’s imperative that you keep your video files folder in the same place on every machine you open it up on.  That’s why I keep all my video files in a big folder on box that I drop on the desktop of any machine I’m working on before I open my premiere files.  The Adobe Premiere project walkthrough  has more details on this.

Where to find video and how to capture it

About fair use . Make sure your composition complies with the Fair Use doctrine and familiarize yourself with the four criteria.

The best place to capture images is always from a high-resolution DVD or video file .  The first place you should go to get the film is the library– see instructions for searching here .

To import the video and audio from your DVD or video file into your video editing software (like Premiere), you will first need to use a software to convert it to an .mkv.  See instructions on how to do that here .

Camtasia tutorials .  Camtasia is a program that allows you to capture anything that’s going on on your screen .  This is a critical tool for this assignment as you decide what kind of interface you want to present to your reader in your video essay.  Camtasia also allows you to capture any high-quality video playing on your desktop without licensing restrictions.

You can also use Clip Converter to capture images and sound from pre-existing YouTube videos , and it may be a little faster and easier than Camtasia.   I suggest converting things into .mkv before putting them into your video editor, regardless of where you get the material from.

Film theory and criticism

• /r/truefilm’s reading and viewing guide

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Video essays and digital storytelling

How to use this guide

What is a video/multimedia essay?

• Digital storytelling
• 1. Planning and storyboarding
• 2. Gathering images/video/audio
• 3. Video editing
• 4. Creating credits

This guide will take you step-by-step through the process of creating a video essay or digital story. The guide is laid out in the order you might approach your given assignment.  Tips, recommendations, and links to various tools are provided along the way.

You can work through each step by using the left navigation, or you can jump into the topic of your choosing.

What is a video essay?

Video essays use audiovisual materials to present research or explore topics. Like written essays, they may contain an introduction, argument, supporting evidence, and conclusion.

Introduction

Writing an essay, multi-media or otherwise, is about telling a story. Stories have a structure, and the academic structure for an essay is different than the structure for a novel or biography. Nonetheless, some of the same basic story structures apply.

Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and there has to be some kind of coherence or flow to their telling. In the case of telling a digital story, this linear structure can be stretched a little because of the options that multimedia affords. And, because the story is told "on camera", there is some work to be done prior to its telling. A video essay parallels what you would do in a written essay in regards to determining:

• what story you want to tell;
• how that story will be structured (what gets included);
• what order it goes in to build your argument or thesis; and
• because it is academic, how and where you need to support your story elements with reference to the academic literature (citations).

--Introduction courtesy of Dr. Robin Cox, Associate Professor, Royal Roads University

• Next: Digital storytelling >>
• Last Updated: Aug 18, 2023 1:01 PM
• URL: https://libguides.royalroads.ca/videoessayhowto

How to do a Video Essay: What is a Video Essay?

Introducing the Video Essay: Assignment of Now!

• What is a Video Essay?

The term Video Essay is hard to define as it is still evolving from a long cinematic history. From the screen studies perspective, it is a video that analyses specific topics or themes relating to film and television and is relevant as it comments on film in its own language. On a basic level it could be defined as the video equivalent of the written essay.

This guide refers to the video essay from the context of the academic audiovisual essay as a multimodal form that combines written, audio and visual modes to communicate an idea. As a structure, the video essay is thesis-driven, and uses images with text so that the audience can read and interpret the idea or argument in a multimodal way.

In educational settings, the term video essay is used broadly for teacher/student-learner generated video and as a vehicle to transmediate between written-text to digital forms.  Through the video essay form, students are able to achieve learning outcomes in a new way as a multimodal experience while engaging with the subject, task or assessment through expression and creation of self-knowledge.

PHOTO: TWITTER/@GIZMODO. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/tech/death-of-the-vcr-5-things-to-remember-about-the-iconic-technology

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• The Video Essay Process
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• A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies
• Modes Of Multimodality
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• Video Essay Channels
• Weblinks to Video Essay Resources
• Weblinks to Creative Commons Resources
• Titles in the Library
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• Marking Rubric
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Media Production and Film Studies

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• The Video Essay

So you want to make a video essay...

The video essay: how-to, featured video essays.

• Copyright & Fair Use
• Getting Help

Additional Resources

Academic Journals

• in[Transition] : The first open access, peer-reviewed journal on videographic criticism
• AUDIOVISUALCY: Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies : An online forum for video essays or works of audovisual screen studies that have an analytical, critical, reflexive or scholarly purpose; fully attribute all sources used; are made according to Fair Use principles; are non-commercial in nature.

Video Essay Channels

• Every Frame a Painting  
• Indietrix Film Reviews
• 100 Years of Cinema  
• Channel Criswell  
• Lindsay Ellis

Library Guides

• Tufts University Library: Multimedia Production
• Edith Cowan University Library: The Video Essay
• Pace University Library: Film Criticism

What is a video essay ?

Christian Keathley, a Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College & co-founder of in[Transition], defines video essays as

“short critical essays on a given film or filmmaker, typically read in voice-over by the author and supplemented with carefully chosen and organized film clips”

Video essays have found incresased popularity in recent years on digital content sharing platforms like YouTube & Vimeo. Despite their scholarly-focused and argument-driven nature, video essays have since been associated with (and mistaken for) other popular forms of commentary (e.g. movie commentaries, reaction videos, online fan-edits, etc.) shared on the same platforms. The two do have similarities in their accessibility and utilize the same set of creative tools and texhniques. However, the video essay in its academic form does follow certain conventions (a written critical component from the author, scholarly research, and peer review), as opposed to popular commentaries. 

Video essays as a medium are an important audivisual form of scholarship, particularly in terms of expression, creation, and accessibility. Traditional essays may not always lend themselves to the fullest expression of film and how we interpret/analyze visual images. As students of film and media studies, it is important to both understand the medium from a critical point of view, as well as from a creative point of view. 

• Planning & Preparation
• Gathering Materials & Filming
• Editing & Sharing
• Understanding File Formats

So you've been assigned a video essay for class, or you want to make one on your own...

Where do you start? Like any other form of traditional essay, you will begin by Developing A Topic , whether it's a persuasive argument, a narrative story, or a research question. If you’re telling a story, think about good elements of narrative. If you’re making an argument in your video essay, think about the elements of making an effective argument. If you're drafting a research question, make sure to be specific and answer the following: who?, what?, where?, when?, why?, and how?

For more information about developing a topic or researcj question, please check out the following resources: 

• Pace Library Guide: The Research Process, Step-By-Step
• Pace Library Guide: Getting Started with Research

Once you have a well-developed topic and/or research question, then you can Create an Outline and Write a Script for your video essay. Utilizing your background research, evidence from whichever piece(s) of media you are analyzing/discussing, and your own arguments/interpretations of that media, you can build an outline and write a basic script to refer to when filmming and/or recording your video essay. This script will especially be important if you plan to record a voiceover. 

For more information about how to write a script/create an outline, please check out the following resources: 

• Excelsior Online Writing Lab: Video Essays
• How To Make A Video Essay: Writing   by  Indietrix Film Reviews

Now, you've got your script and you're ready to start gathering materials (scenes, images, audio, etc.) to edit into your video essay.  The best place to capture images is always  from a high-resolution DVD, Blue-ray, or video file. 

There are a couple of different places you can acquire these files. Of course, you can always invest in your own copies of the physical media. This is the best (and most ethical ) way to get high quality images, video, and footage.

Should you wish to do a screen capture, you can use platforms like Camtasia or Clip Converter to record images or footage directly from your screen. These aren't always the most ethical means to record footage, so if you choose to do so, be sure to consult Fair Use Guidelines before doing so. For this process, you will also likely need a DVD Drive, whether external or internal. Having one that can read DVDs and Blu-rays is a plus! Resoruces for how to do these technical processes are included below. 

Before you actually aquire any footage or media for your video essay, it's important to weigh the ethical considerations (i.e. Fair Use & Copyright Law) no matter what the media is or your intention to use it. 

Resources: 

• How To Make A Video Essay: Footage and Voiceover   from  Indietrix Film Reviews  
• How To Make Video Essays:  This video is especially helpful in terms of the technology of filming and recording voiceovers for video essays, less so the other aspects of video essay production. 
• Camtasia: Screen Capture & Recording Tutorials

As for finding stock photos or images to use that are in the Public Domain , check out this well-curated list of public domain image libraries, websites, and archives at the Tufts University Library Multimedia Production Resource Guide . 

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. 

For more information on editing video essays, please check out the following resources: 

• How to Make a Video Essay: Editing by  Indietrix Film Reviews
• Vimeo: Editing Basics

When creating, saving, uploading, and sharing video essays, it's important to have a basic understanding of digitail file formats, for videos, audio, and images. 

Linked below are some resources (websites, videos, & infographics) to help you learn how to navigate each file format and learn their best uses. It's likely you'll become aware of and proficient at most of this as you move through your Film & Screen Studies coursework, so think of these resources as a brief introduction to the topic and/or as little reminders for you to refer to in the future. 

Books: 

• Portable Moving Images: A Media History of Storage  Formats  by Ricardo Cedeño Montaña
• Images on the Move: Materiality - Networks -  Formats   Editor: Olga Moskatova

Blog Posts: 

• Understanding Video File Formats, Codecs and Containers by Andy Owen at TechSmith
• Video Formats – Meaning, types and everything you should know   by  Akeem Okunola at InEvent
• Image file formats: When to Use Each File Type   by Samual Lundquist at 99Designs

Other Resources: 

• Introduction to Digital Format Preservation, The Library of Congress

Image Credit: WonderShare, "Top 9 Video Formats You May Want to Know In 2023." 

The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism from Ian Garwood on Vimeo .

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How to Write a Video Essay: A Step-by-Step Guide and Tips

• by Joseph Kenas
• January 5, 2024
• Writing Tips

The video essay has become an increasingly popular way of presenting ideas and concepts in the age of the internet and YouTube. In this guide, we present a step-by-step guide on how to write a video essay and tips on how to make it.

While it is easy to write a normal essay, the structure of the video essay is a bit of a mystery, owing to the newness of the term.

However, in this article, we are going to define what is a video essay, how to write a video essay, and also How to present a video essay well in class.

What is a Video Essay?

A video essay is a video that delves into a certain subject, concept, person, or thesis. Video essays are difficult to characterize because they are a relatively new form, yet they are recognized regardless. Simply, video essays are visual compilations that try to persuade, educate, or criticize.

These days, there are many creatives making video essays on topics like politics, music, movies, and pop culture.

With these, essays have become increasingly popular in the era of video media such as Youtube, Vimeo, and others.

Video essays, like photo and traditional essays, tell a story or make a point.

The distinction is that video essays provide information through visuals.

When creating a video essay, you can incorporate video, images, text, music, and/or narration to make it dynamic and successful.

When you consider it, many music videos are actually video essays. 

Since making videos for YouTube and other video sites has grown so popular, many professors are now assigning video essays instead of regular essays to their students. So the question is, how do you write a video essay script?

Steps on How to Write a Video Essay Script

Unscripted videos cost time, effort, and are unpleasant to watch. The first thing you should do before making a video writes a script, even if it’s only a few lines long. Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of writing a script. All you need is a starting point.

A video script is important for anyone who wants to film a video with more confidence and clarity. They all contain comparable forms of information, such as who is speaking, what is said, where, and other important details.

While there are no precise criteria that a video essay must follow, it appears that most renowned video essayists are adhering to some steps as the form gets more popular and acknowledged online. 

1. Write a Thesis

Because a video essayist can handle a wide range of themes, video analysis essays lack defined bounds. The majority of essays, on the other hand, begin with a thesis.

A thesis is a statement, claim, theme, or concept that the rest of the essay is built around. A thesis might be broad, including a variety of art forms. Other theses can be quite detailed.

A good essay will almost always have a point to express. Every video analysis essay should have a central idea, or thesis, that ties the film together.

2. Write a Summary

Starting with a brief allows you and your team to document the answers to the most pressing project concerns. It ensures that everyone participating in the video production is on the same page.

This will avoid problems of mixing ideas or getting stuck when you are almost completing the project.

3. Choose a Proper Environment and Appropriate Tools

When it comes to writing your script, use any tool you’re familiar with, such as pen and paper. Also, find a writing atmosphere that is relaxing for you, where you can concentrate and be creative.

Consider what you don’t have to express out loud when you’re writing. Visual elements will be used to communicate a large portion of your content.

4. Use a Template

When you don’t have to reinvent the process every time you sit down, you get speed and consistency.

It’s using your cumulative knowledge of what works and doing it over and over again. Don’t start with a blank page when I sit down to create a script- try to use an already made template. 

5. Be Conversational

You want scripts that use language that is specific and targeted. Always avoid buzzwords, cliches, and generalizations. You want your audience to comprehend you clearly without rolling their eyes.

6. Be Narrative

Make careful to use a strong story structure when you’re trying to explain anything clearly. Ensure your script has a beginning, middle, and end, no matter how short it is. This will provide a familiar path for the viewers of your video script.

7. Edit Your Script

Make each word work for a certain position on the page when you choose your words.

They must serve a purpose.

After you’ve completed your first draft, go over your script and review it.

Then begin editing, reordering, and trimming. Remove as much as possible.

Consider cutting it if it isn’t helping you achieve your goal.

 8. Read Your Script Loudly

Before recording or going on in your process, it’s recommended to read your script aloud at least once. Even if you won’t be the one reading it, this is a good method to ensure that your message is clear. It’s a good idea to be away from people so you may practice in peace.

Words that flow well on paper don’t always flow well when spoken aloud. You might need to make some adjustments based on how tough certain phrases are to pronounce- it’s a lot easier to change it now than when recording.

9. Get Feedback

Sometimes it is very difficult to point out your mistakes in any piece of writing. Therefore, if you want a perfect video essay script, it is advisable to seek feedback from people who are not involved in the project.

Keep in mind that many will try to tear your work apart and make you feel incompetent. However, it can also be an opportunity to make your video better.

The best way to gather feedback is to assemble a group of people and read your script to them. Watch their facial reaction and jot own comments as you read. Make sure not to defend your decisions. Only listen to comments and ask questions to clarify.

After gathering feedback, decide on what points to include in your video essay. Also, you can ask someone else to read it to you so that you can listen to its follow.

A video essay can be a good mode to present all types of essays, especially compare and contrast essays as you can visually contrast the two subjects of your content.

How to make a Good Video from your Essay Script

You can make a good video from your script if you ask yourself the following questions;

• What is the video’s purpose? What is the purpose of the video in the first place?
• Who is this video’s intended audience?
• What is the subject of our video? (The more precise you can be, the better.) 
• What are the most important points to remember from the video?- What should viewers take away from it?

If the context had multiple characters, present their dialogues well in the essay to bring originality. If there is a need to involve another person, feel free to incorporate them.

How to Present a Video Essay Well in Class

• Write down keywords or main ideas in a notecard; do not write details- writing main ideas will help you remember your points when presenting. This helps you scan through your notecard for information.
• Practice- in presentations it is easy to tell who has practiced and who hasn’t. For your video essay to grab your class and professor’s attention, practice is the key. Practice in front of your friends and family asking for feedback and try to improve.
• Smile at your audience- this is one of the most important points when presenting anything in front of an audience. A smiley face draws the attention of the audience making them smile in return thus giving you confidence.
• Walk to your seat with a smile- try not to be disappointed even if you are not applauded. Be confident that you have aced your video presentation.

Other video presentations tips include;

• Making eye contact
• Have a good posture
• Do not argue with the audience 
• Look at everyone around the room, not just one audience or one spot
• Rember to use your hand and facial expressions to make a point.

Joseph is a freelance journalist and a part-time writer with a particular interest in the gig economy. He writes about schooling, college life, and changing trends in education. When not writing, Joseph is hiking or playing chess.

Introduction to video-essays

• Post author By Mariia Makutonina
• Post date November 24, 2021

While we wait for the Videography course to become again available at Middlebury, I invite you to discover the world of video essays on your own terms through these five artists.

Video essay is a piece of video content that, much like a written essay, advances an argument. The only difference is that a video essay takes advantage of the structure and language of film to deliver its point.

• Kogonada Discover masterfully constructed video essays from the writer-director Kogonada who reveals through visual arguments the power of cinematography in your favourite. His works are STRIKINGLY beautiful and give you an amazing insight into the history of film and its artistic power to create emotional response in viewers worldwide. You can start your exploration with this piece on Italian Neo-realism: http://kogonada.com/portfolio/what-is-neorealism
• Shanespeare If you are looking for more casual, relaxed and chattier video-essay experience, you should definitely check out Shanespeare channel on YouTube. Shaniya explores a variety of cultural, societal and media subjects using popular films we consume to ask critical questions about our collective values. And it’s great fun, too! She manages to combine highly academic rhetoric with casual Gen-z language and jokes, making you feel like you are listening to a friend’s banter about pop culture’s latest trends. I recommend this piece on How Hollywood Demonizes Feminity .
• Nerdwriter We all sooner or later discover this channel on Youtube and inevitably fall in love with Evan Pushak’s beautiful voice, slick visuals and highly engaging philosophical reflections on a myriad of humanity subjects. Whether you want to look at the film you love from a new, unexpected perspective, learn about history, architecture, painting or like me, discover the poetry of Emily Dickinson and E.E. Cummings, you absolutely must check out this page if you haven’t already done so before. You can start with this piece Time, Tarkovsky And Pandemic .
• What’s So Great About That? Grace Lee is the queen of engaging with dense, very specific media subjects with seeming ease and relaxed attitude that you cannot stop watching whatever video you happen to click on and can find yourself down the rabbit hole of layers of complex theoretical arguments Lee proposes. Be careful with this self-reflexive, funny and piercingly smart video-essayist, because the next time you will be preparing readings for your film theory class, inevitably this question will pop into your head: “Did Grace reference this paper in one her essays?” She probably did, and let’s keep this gem between us. You can start with her piece on Video essay .
• Lessons from the Screenplay Finally, if like me, you have missed an opportunity to take a screenwriting course and find yourself in ss1/2 trying to make a short film, this is one of the helpful resources on your crash-course journey of becoming a better storyteller. Check out this piece on the structure of When Harry Met Sally . Bonus essay: Jessica McGoff on Mulholland Drive: http://www.thecine-files.com/on-mulholland-drive/

Feel free to talk to me about taking a video essay class – my media tutor hours: Sunday 4 pm-7pm and 8pm-12 am:)

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Video Essay Analysis and Composition

Lesson plan, grade level.

Undergraduate (Face-to-Face or Online)

Students will be introduced to a contemporary essay genre to see how people argue in multimodal environments.

Students will reinforce their understanding of various ideas from composition studies discussed throughout the semester, including Aristotle’s Triangle, Toulmin’s Model, and paragraph structure. 1

Students will demonstrate their understanding of expository writing and argumentative approaches.

Students will compose a short video essay based on a previous assignment to learn the basics of video essay composition.

Background and Context

I provide these exercises near the middle of the semester as a way to show the relevancy of what students are learning in the composition class. I teach this genre in both Composition 1 and 2. The exercises demonstrate how people use the same structure and argumentative techniques in video essays that the students are using in their written work. Given the increasing popularity of video essays, this assignment allows students to see what contemporary expository writing is like in the digital age.

Total Estimated Class Time

A single class period (approx. 50 mins.)

Videos Used for This Session and Assignment

Jack Saint’s “The Truth about 90s Cartoons and ‘LGBT Brainwashing’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L–Fa8_ujBA

Jack Saint’s “Sky High: Disney’s Fascist Eugenics Movie”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdbLUm-ez8

Sequence of Activities

• Viewing and Analysis (30 mins.)

As students watch the videos, they take notes, guided by the questions in the Video Essay Analysis exercise.

• Class Discussion (20 mins.)

As a class, we share everyone’s answers, referring to specific sections of the videos. This discussion creates a lot of interaction: some students are unsure about what the thesis is, while others find it easily—more easily than they found the thesis in any written essay previously provided.

Then we discuss whether students would rather write traditional essays or compose video essays. Many students prefer watching the essay video to reading an essay, yet most would rather compose a written essay, since they recognize that it would take more time to complete and edit a well-paced video essay.

These discussions always reinforce compositional elements and allow students to think about how genre and structure affect the creation of an argument.

Follow-Up Activities

For homework, students create one-minute recorded versions of traditional essays they wrote earlier in the course, then share the recordings in discussion boards. This activity offers them a chance to experiment with speaking while using a scripted argument and helps them think about how they can adapt, retool, and revise their claims.

Possible Alterations

One way to strengthen the discussion is to assign the students to watch the video for homework and complete the exercise sheet before they come to the next session. The main reason my students watch the video in class is that they have limited access to the Internet outside the school because they live in a rural area. If students lived in an area where they could access the Internet asynchronously, I would assign watching the video before they came to class so that we could spend more time on analysis and discussion.

I have used these exercises for online composition classes and made only minor adjustments. For online classes, we simply divide each stage into individual assignments and discussion boards. The students answer the questions about the video essay on their own and then share the responses in a discussion board. The larger discussion occurs in the same discussion board. The video essays are posted in another forum, an activity that creates further dialogue about this genre.

You can use these assignments in secondary education courses as well. If time and curricular requirements allow, you can easily use more essays with a similar theme to help show how people respond to topics and each other’s interpretations.

Although Jack Saint’s videos are fun to use, especially since I teach film as well, I would recommend finding video essays that coincide with a course’s theme or that focus on current events. The topics of video essays on the web are as varied as the approaches used to create them. Certain ones use a simple webcam, while others use more sophisticated editing. In any case, introducing video essays in a composition course allows students to see and hear arguments—a valuable experience.

1 Aristotle’s Triangle, also known as the rhetorical triangle, includes the foundational ways in which speakers or writers can appeal to their audiences. The three components include pathos (appeals to an audience’s emotion), logos (appeals to an audience’s sense of logic and reasoning), and ethos (appeals that establish an author’s credibility for an audience). Stephen Toulmin created his model to show the fundamental elements of argumentation in writing. The basic elements include claim, data, and warrant or synthesis. He argues that these three components are needed for any argument to be successful, and this structure is the basis for most paragraphs for expository writing. The traditional formula for structuring a paragraph involves starting with a topic sentence argument, followed by examples, and ending with synthesis sentences.

Lesson Materials

Video Essay Analysis Exercise  

Video Essay Prompt  

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Scripting Video Essays: How to Write a Great Narrative

There are many ways in which you can write video essays. Some have argued that video essays are a new trend in the world of creative writing. There is so much emphasis on developing a story from visuals, photographs, videos, and music to tell an enduring tale or lesson in this day and age. 

So, if you want to join the video essay bandwagon as an artist, expert, researcher, or student, you must know how to write them first before creating them.

Writing a narrative video essay is a great way to share your ideas with the world. Narrative essays let you not only say something meaningful but also show it. A good narrative video essay is also about the art of visual storytelling.

But first, if you are wondering what exactly is a video essay. Let’s address it first.

What is a Video Essay?

A video essay is a form of a documentary-like video narrative film using film footage, video clips, and graphics to discuss an issue or topic. Academics and artists can typically use video essays to discuss their research. 

In addition to blog posts and magazine articles, video essays are a new type of storytelling in the digital world. They take one idea and meticulously construct a narrative on how it came to be, how it’s been used/applied, or what it means.

In its most popular form (one person talking head), a video essay is made up of between 3-7 minutes in length and usually presents one concept or topic.

It often looks at a film and demonstrates how it is engaging in meaning or does not. The video essay can also emphasize the acts performed by actors or directors, such as performance, staging, and editing techniques.

But today, it is not fixated to film subjects only.  You can also expand your visual stories about anything under the sun like history, politics, science, technology, etc. Just choose an idea and proceed with your essay writing.

Here is an excellent example of the best video essays –  Example: Best Video Essays by Vox

How do you Create a Narrative in your Video Essay?

To create a compelling video essay, you must know how to write an essay with a video component to produce a compelling story. A good video essay should have the following qualities:

• It should be insightful, thought-provoking, or informative.
• It should be argumentative and practice critical thinking
• It should be visual, formal, and well-structured.
• It should help the viewer understand and appreciate a topic/situation from various angles.
• It should inspire viewers through findings, vocabulary, and plot.

The best video essays also use candid footage and demonstrate the use of nonfiction or documentary filmmaking techniques . And the main reason why people gravitate towards narrative essays is that they let you show your ideas visually to your viewers.

How to Write a Video Essay Script?

Many people are starting to make video essays as a way of presenting their own thoughts and experiences. The problem is that these videos do not have any actual narration, leaving the viewer lost trying to understand what’s happening.

But to write a grand narrative, you must follow the following stages:

Brainstorming ideas is the first stage. At this stage, you should list a few interesting concepts in an organized way. You may want to use the topic form like: “A Case for Video Essays” or “How to Create a Story Using Text and Images?” So, while ideating, follow these:

• Begin by picking a topic ( mostly what you are passionate about).
• Think about your point of view and audience. 
• Set up the background and context for your essay or story (the “what”). 
• Reveal the turning point in your story (the “why”). 
• Provide evidence to support your account of events (the “where”) 
• Discuss how the incident relates to broader social concerns (the “what now?”).

Research is the next stage of writing a video essay. The moment you decide to make a video essay, you should have enough information about the topic. The more information and research you do in the ideation stage, the easier it will be for you as a writer and speaker to share your knowledge with the audience. Research may include:

• Finding out facts from books, interviews, or research papers.
• Finding out relevant video footage of the person, place, or event.
• Getting access to the video footage of a particular event (e.g., presidential speeches).
• Find audio or video files on the Internet and transcribe them into text format (e.g., podcasts, interviews).
• THE ESSAY STRUCTURE: 

Because the video essay is still relatively new, there are no definitive rules about structure and genre for these films.  But still, we should adhere to some basic rules while constructing the script structure. Your structure is the most crucial stage for a crackling narrative. 

The essentials of a great narrative essay structure are as follows :

• First, create a rough outline from your research material.
• Think about a compelling opening line with a single line answer to the question of the essay
• Begin with questions, then answer in a way to create an argument.
• The Argument then leads to the next question.
• The emotion and Tone of the script should be formal, thought-provoking, insightful, and informative, supported by relevant visual reference.
• The essay must represent a single point of view.
• But it should be a well-reasoned perspective.
• It must have the writer or creator’s personal touch.
• Good writing is about the economy of words articulated to the point.
• Don’t forget to mention the What is the Takeaway for the audience.
• Don’t make it lengthy. Video essays are also about documenting or reviewing videos. So the script should not eat it all.
• Once you have structured the script, go back to the beginning and review your work.

Once you have prepared a rough draft of your essay, read it out loud and find the rhythm in the story. Is it telling the theme visually?  Rewrite and get the tone right. Your first few scripts may not be satisfactory. Don’t worry about that. It is a learning process.

• WRITING THE FINAL DRAFT:

Now, once you have gotten all the ideas into a script, you will be eager to write the final draft. At this stage, make sure to follow the following tips:

• Make sure every line is comprehensible so that viewers can easily understand your point of view without missing anything important in it.
• Proofread and make sure that you don’t leave any unfinished work or broken sentences in the video essay structure.
• Check the length of the video essay and make sure to follow the minimum requirements.
• Once you are done with the script, check for the formatting of your work.
• Spend extra time on a great narration that helps explain your content effectively and concisely.
• Get a clear idea about what you want to say so that you know what kind of images to use in the final draft of your essay and how they should be arranged.
• Conclude the essay by providing the audience with everything they need to know about your subject.

For a compelling narrative, the first thing to do is identify what makes the story you are trying to tell unique and why an audience wants to learn about it.

Related Question:

Are Video Essays Popular Today?

Though the concept was coined in the mid-1990s, it has only become popular in the last five years or so. As of now, a considerable amount of video essays and short films are uploaded on Youtube. Some have even garnered millions of views.  The prominent mentions are the Nerdwriter, and Every Frame is a Painting.

check out – Best Video Essays of last year

How Long Does a Video Essay Take to Write?

If you are writing a long video essay, it can take you a considerable amount of time. However, if you aim to create a short film covering one event, it can be done in a day or two. 

But, you may take time if you don’t have the research material in your hand. 

Final words:

The video essay became popular because it is a way to engage with the writer rather than just “watching” them talk about something. But, to make a great narrative, you have to research a lot and put in your best efforts. 

We hope this write-up has helped you create a great video essay. Happy writing!

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What Is a Video Essay? Definition & Examples Of Video Essays

A video essay consists of a series of videos that collectively, present an in-depth analysis or interpretation of a given subject or topic.

In this way, a video essay can be thought of as a condensed version of a lengthy written article.

VIDEO ESSAY

What is a video essay.

A video essay is an audio-visual presentation of your thoughts on a topic or text that usually lasts between 5 and 10 minutes long.

It can take the form of any type of media such as film, animation, or even PowerPoint presentations.

The most important thing to remember when creating a video essay is to include voiceover narration throughout the whole project so that viewers feel they are listening in on your thoughts and ideas rather than watching passively.

Video essays are typically created by content creators’ critics to make arguments about cinema, television, art history, and culture more broadly.

Ever wondered how ideas unfold in the dynamic world of video?

That’s where video essays come in.

They’re a compelling blend of documentary and personal reflection, packed into a visually engaging package.

We’ll dive deep into the art of the video essay, a form that’s taken the internet by storm.

In this article, we’ll explore how video essays have revolutionized storytelling and education.

They’re not just a person talking to a camera; they’re a meticulously crafted narrative, often weaving together film footage, voiceover, text, and music to argue and inform.

Stick with us as we unpack the nuances that make video essays a unique and powerful medium for expression and learning.

Components Of A Video Essay

As storytellers and educators, we recognize the intricate elements that comprise a video essay.

Each component is vital for communicating the essay’s message and maintaining the audience’s engagement.

Narrative Structure serves as the backbone of a video essay.

Our crafting of this structure relies on a cinematic approach where the beginning, middle, and end serve to introduce, argue, and explore our ideas.

Film Footage then breathes life into our words.

We handpick scenes from various sources, be it iconic or obscure, to visually accentuate our narrative.

The Voiceover we provide acts as a guide for our viewers.

It delivers our analysis and commentary, ensuring our perspective is heard.

Paired with this is the Text and Graphics segment, offering another layer of interpretation.

We animate bullet points, overlay subtitles, and incorporate infographics to highlight key points.

Our sound design, specifically the Music and Sound Effects , creates the video essay’s atmosphere.

It underscores the emotions we wish to evoke and punctuates the points we make.

This auditory component is as crucial as the visual, as it can completely change the viewer’s experience.

We also pay close attention to the Editing and Pacing .

This ensures our video essays are not only informative but also engaging.

The rhythm of the cuts and transitions keeps viewers invested from start to finish.

In essence, a strong video essay is a tapestry woven with:

• Narrative Structure – the story’s framework,
• Film Footage – visual evidence supporting our claims,
• Voiceover – our distinctive voice that narrates the essay,
• Text and Graphics – the clarity of our arguments through visual aids,
• Music and Sound Effects – the emotive undercurrent of our piece,
• Editing and Pacing – the flow that maintains engagement.

Each element works Along with the others, making our video essays not just informative, but also a cinematic experience.

Through these components, we offer a comprehensive yet compelling way of storytelling that captivates and educates our audience.

The Power Of Visual Storytelling

Visual storytelling harnesses the innate human attraction to imagery and narrative.

At its core, a video essay is a compelling form of visual storytelling that combines the rich tradition of oral narrative with the dynamic appeal of cinema.

The impact of visual storytelling in video essays can be profound.

When crafted effectively, they engage viewers on multiple sensory levels – not just audibly but visually, leading to a more immersive and memorable experience.

Imagery in visual storytelling isn’t merely decorative.

It’s a crucial carrier of thematic content, enhancing the narrative and supporting the overarching message.

By incorporating film footage and stills, video essays create a tapestry of visuals that resonate with viewers.

• Film Footage – Brings concepts to life with cinematic flair,
• Stills and Graphics – Emphasize key points and add depth to the narrative.

Through the deliberate choice of images and juxtaposition, video essays are able to articulate complex ideas.

They elicit emotions and evoke reactions that pure text or speech cannot match.

From documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth to educational content on platforms like TED-Ed, video essays have proven their capacity to inform and inspire.

Sound design in video essays goes beyond mere accompaniment; it’s an integral component of storytelling.

Music and sound effects set the tone, heighten tension, and can even alter the audience’s perception of the visuals.

It’s this synergy that elevates the story, giving it texture and nuance.

• Music – Sets the emotional tone,
• Sound Effects – Enhances the realism of the visuals.

Crafting a narrative in this medium isn’t just about what’s on screen.

It requires an understanding of how each element – from script to sound – works in concert.

This unity forms an intricate dance of auditory and visual elements that can transform a simple message into a powerful narrative experience.

The Influence Of Video Essays In Education

Video essays have become a dynamic tool in academic settings, transcending traditional teaching methods.

By blending entertainment with education, they engage students in ways that lectures and textbooks alone cannot.

How To Create A Powerful Video Essay

Creating a compelling video essay isn’t just about stitching clips together.

It requires a blend of critical thinking, storytelling, and technical skill.

Choose a Central Thesis that resonates with your intended audience.

Like any persuasive essay, your video should have a clear argument or point of view that you aim to get across.

Research Thoroughly to support your thesis with factual data and thought-provoking insights.

Whether you’re dissecting themes in The Great Gatsby or examining the cinematography of Citizen Kane , your analysis must be thorough and well-founded.

Plan Your Narrative Structure before jumping into the editing process.

Decide the flow of your argument and how each segment supports your central message.

Typically, you’d include:

• An intriguing introduction – set the stage for what’s coming,
• A body that elaborates your thesis – present your evidence and arguments,
• Clearly separated sections – these act as paragraphs would in written essays.

Visuals Are Key in a video essay.

We opt for high-quality footage that not only illustrates but also enhances our narrative.

Think of visuals as examples that will bring your argument to life.

Audio selection Should Never Be an Afterthought.

Pair your visuals with a soundtrack that complements the mood you’re aiming to create.

Voice-overs should be clear and paced in a way that’s easy for the audience to follow.

Editing Is Where It All Comes Together.

Here, timing and rhythm are crucial to maintain viewer engagement.

We ensure our cuts are clean and purposeful, and transition effects are used judiciously.

Interactive Elements like on-screen text or graphics can add a layer of depth to your video essay.

Use such elements to highlight important points or data without disrupting the flow of your narrative.

Feedback Is Invaluable before finalizing your video essay.

We often share our drafts with a trusted group to gain insights that we might have missed.

It’s a part of refining our work to make sure it’s as impactful as it can be.

Remember, creating a video essay is about more than compiling clips and sound – it’s a form of expression that combines film criticism with visual storytelling.

It’s about crafting an experience that informs and intrigues, compelling the viewer to see a subject through a new lens.

With the right approach, we’re not just delivering information; we’re creating an immersive narrative experience.

What Is A Video Essay – Wrap Up

We’ve explored the intricate craft of video essays, shedding light on their ability to captivate and inform.

By weaving together compelling visuals and sound with a strong narrative, we can create immersive experiences that resonate with our audience.

Let’s harness these tools and share our stories, knowing that with the right approach, our video essays can truly make an impact.

Remember, it’s our unique perspective and creative vision that will set our work apart in the ever-evolving landscape of digital storytelling.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is visual storytelling in video essays.

Visual storytelling in video essays is the craft of using visual elements to narrate a story or present an argument, engaging viewers on a sensory level beyond just text or speech.

Why Is Visual Storytelling Important In Video Essays?

Visual storytelling is important because it captures attention and immerses the audience, making the content more memorable and impactful through the integration of visuals, sound, and narrative.

What Are The Key Elements Of A Powerful Video Essay?

The key elements include a central thesis, thorough research, a well-planned narrative structure, high-quality visuals, fitting audio, effective editing, interactive components, and a compelling immersive narrative experience.

How Do I Choose A Central Thesis For My Video Essay?

Choose a central thesis that is focused, debatable, and thought-provoking to anchor your video essay and give it a clear direction.

What Should I Focus On During The Research Phase?

Focus on gathering varied and credible information that supports your thesis and enriches the narrative with compelling facts and insights.

What Role Does Audio Play In Video Essays?

Audio enhances the visual experience by adding depth to the narrative, providing emotional cues, and aiding in information retention.

How Can Interactive Elements Improve My Video Essay?

Interactive elements can enhance engagement by allowing viewers to participate actively, often leading to a deeper understanding and connection with the content.

Why Is Feedback Important In Creating A Video Essay?

Feedback is crucial as it provides insights into how your video essay is perceived, allowing you to make adjustments to improve clarity, impact, and viewer experience.

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A video essay is a type of video that is used to present a single, cohesive argument or idea. They can be used to communicate a complex idea in a way that is easy to understand. They can also be used to show how a

It is indeed.

Absolutely, Greg.

Great post! I found the definition of video essays to be particularly insightful.

As someone who is new to the world of video essays, it’s helpful to understand the different forms and purposes of this medium. The examples you provided were also enlightening, particularly the one on the First Amendment.

I’m looking forward to exploring more video essays in the future!

I found this post to be incredibly informative and helpful in understanding the concept of video essays.

As a budding filmmaker, I’m intrigued by the idea of blending traditional essay structure with visual storytelling. The examples provided in the post were particularly insightful, showcasing the versatility of video essays in capturing complex ideas and emotions. I can’t wait to explore this medium further and see where it takes me!

I found this post really fascinating, especially the section on the different types of video essays. I never knew there were so many variations!

As a student, I’m definitely going to start experimenting with video essays as a way to express myself and communicate my ideas. Thanks for sharing!

Interesting read! I’m curious to explore more video essays and see how they can be used to convey complex ideas in an engaging way.

Appreciate the comment

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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.

Frames Cinema Journal

Peer-reviewed | open access | annual.

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

By erlend lavik.

That the Internet has transformed film and television criticism ( 1 ) is readily apparent, though the ways in which it has done so are exceedingly hard to pin down. The most obvious change is simply quantitative: digital technology has made the maxim “everyone’s a critic” more nearly true than ever before. It is far harder to gauge the internet’s impact on the quality of film and television criticism, mainly because developments are so diverse and contradictory. Online criticism ranges from brilliant to banal, and it is as easy to argue that film criticism has never been better as it is to argue that it has never been worse. It merely depends on where we cast our nets and on what evaluative criteria we bring into play. What we can say for sure is that digital technology has a great potential to reinvigorate film and television criticism. The aim of this article is to tentatively explore what this potential consists of and how it can be realized. Of course, it is impossible to deal with such a vast topic at a general level. Film criticism is a sweeping concept, ranging from amateur blogs to newspaper reviews to dense scholarly studies that shade into film theory and film history. I will concentrate on the latter pole of the continuum, partly to make the discussion somewhat manageable, and partly because it is in the area of more academically oriented criticism that I think fulfillment of this potential is both most realistic and enticing. ( 2 )

One of the obvious fortes of digital criticism is its flexibility. For example, unlike their print counterparts, most online critics need not worry about word counts or deadlines. They are also free to write about any film they want, not just theatrical releases, or to put to the test generic conventions and explore alternative writing styles, unconstrained by editorial policy. Interactivity is another frequently cited resource. Hypertext links can point readers in the direction of relevant background information, while comment sections make online criticism more like the first move in an ongoing conversation rather than a verdict from on high. Most importantly – and promisingly – online critics may incorporate in their work moving images and sound. The burgeoning genre of the video essay commonly employs edited footage from the films under analysis in order to enrich and expand the function of criticism: to shed light on individual films, groups of films, or the cinema as an art form.

The inability to quote their object of study has been a long-standing drawback for film critics. The predicament has been most famously, and perhaps enigmatically, expressed in Raymond Bellour’s classical essay, “The Unattainable Text”. For Bellour, the literary text occupies a privileged position due to “the undivided conformity of the object of study and the means of study, in the absolute material coincidence between language and language” (1975: 20). Unlike literary critics, film critics have not been able to replicate portions of works, but have had to cope as best they can, mimicking, evoking, describing, “playing on an absent object”, as Bellour puts it ( ibid .: 26). In this digital day and age, though, this is no longer the case. For the first time, there is material equivalence between film and film criticism, as both exist – or can be made to exist – simply as media files.

That final statement requires a couple of qualifications, however. First, film critics have naturally not been incapable of reproducing any cinematic attribute. Film is a multimodal medium, and its repertoire includes print critics’ symbolic means of expression: the written word. Hence those portions of a film that consist of text are, to be sure, quotable. The problem is that text rarely, if ever, functions autonomously in the cinema. Certainly, when filmmakers started using intertitles in the silent era, critics could accurately quote movie dialogue – but not, crucially, its preceding and/or subsequent visual enactment (presumably the very reason such works assumed cinematic rather than solely literary form in the first place). With the introduction of sound, dialogue and performance were synchronized, throwing into relief the inadequacy of partial quotation (or more accurately, in this case, transcription). Print critics may still duplicate the literal meaning of the words spoken onscreen, but not the act of speaking itself, i.e. the what but not the how (except, of course, as always, through ekphrasis). ( 3 )

Second, since the 1970s film scholars have occasionally made use of frame enlargements when performing close readings. While useful for some purposes – scrutinizing image composition or lighting schemes, for example – still frames can merely hint at some of the key characteristics of film as a temporal art form: camera movement, blocking, editing, and so on. As Kristin Thompson – who, with David Bordwell, pioneered the use of still images in scholarly studies – points out, frame enlargements were quite rarely used because “It took special equipment to photograph such frames: expensive camera attachments, color-balanced light sources, and the expertise to use both” (2006: n.p.). Thus, until DVDs made frame grabbing easy, most scholars persisted with studio-generated publicity photos as illustrations, which of course were useless for close analysis, seeing as they “did not reflect what really appeared in the film, since they were still photos taken on the set, often with different poses, lighting, and camera position” ( ibid .).

Third, not all films are available in digital format. Numerous cinematic works cannot be quoted even in video essays, if only for the simple reason that they are unavailable either online or on DVD. Fourth, if we think of a film’s theatrical distribution as an “original”, some aural and visual information may be lost or altered as celluloid prints are converted to digital files on a computer. There is no surround sound, for example; film grain is often removed; and the image will typically be cropped along the perimeter. ( 4 ) Still, for most purposes these are minor problems (and it is worth bearing in mind that literary critics are not able to quote all aspects of a book either: to appraise the quality of its paper, its layout, or font style, they too must resort to description).

The obvious advancement that digital film criticism offers is the ability to quote in order to illustrate and exemplify, to hold up for the reader fragments of the work as a shared frame of reference for the critic’s observations and evaluations. The upshot of this facility is hard to specify at this stage. The video essay is still in its infancy, and has not coalesced into established patterns or forms yet. The label refers to sometimes widely divergent works. Matt Zoller Seitz’s wonderful five-part analysis of the film authorship of Wes Anderson, “The Substance of Style”, is a fairly conventional auteur study, tracing key influences on the director’s style and themes. ( 5 ) However, rather than putting forward his argument as text, it is presented in the form of a voiceover accompanied by carefully edited footage from Anderson’ work, sometimes juxtaposed by the work of the major artists that have inspired it. This allows Zoller Seitz to make his case with far greater economy, precision, and persuasion than a written piece with some frame grabs could hope to accomplish.

By contrast, Jim Emerson’s video essay, “Close-Up”, presents a very different approach to the format. ( 6 ) A collage of excerpts from classical films with no expository narration, it offers not so much a straightforward line of reasoning as an evocative meditation on the medium of film. With some modifications (if, no doubt, somewhat to its detriment) Zoller Seitz’s essay could probably be adapted into a scholarly article; Emerson’s, meanwhile, would not look out of place in an art gallery. These examples, though far from exhaustive, point up the scope of the video essay. As we will see, the format overlaps in myriad ways with a number of more established generic structures. The aim of the following discussion is partly descriptive – i.e. it attempts, in broad strokes, to provide an overview of the main genres with which the video essay intersects – and partly normative, i.e. it seeks to tentatively indicate some fruitful avenues for how the video essay may enhance film criticism.

One obvious point of reference is the so-called essay film, itself a notoriously elusive creature. Phillip Lopate calls it a centaur, “a cinematic genre that barely exists” (1992: 19). What he searches for, but struggles to find, is the cinematic equivalent of the literary essay: an eloquent, personal attempt to work out some fairly well-defined problem or mental knot through coherent arguments that flaunts, traces, or preserves the act of thinking.

While I share Lopate’s desire to see this fabled genre brought to fruition far more often, it is both too broad and too narrow for my purposes here. It is too inclusive because there are no thematic constraints. An essay film may deal with any topic under the sun; film criticism must be concerned with film. On the other hand, it is too restrictive, for Lopate seeks to describe a certain style, or tone of voice: elegant, probing, subjective, reflective, reflexive, and so on. The essay film assumes an intermediate position between avant-gardist and documentary practices. On the one hand, it is more accessible and less radically experimental than the avant-garde. For Lopate, the essay presents a reasoned discourse on a reasonably identifiable topic. Thus he finds it hard to think of a filmmaker such as Jean-Luc Godard as an essayist, as he is “too much the modernist […] to be caught dead straightforwardly expressing his views” ( ibid .: 20). While the essay form “allows for fragmentation and disjunction […] it keeps weaving itself whole again, resisting alienation, if only through the power of a synthesizing, personal voice with its old-fashioned humanist assumptions” ( ibid .: 21). Most controversially, perhaps, Lopate insists that an essay-film “must have words, in the form of a text either spoken, subtitled or intertitled” ( ibid .: 19).

On the other hand, the essayist’s rhetoric is invested with less authority than the documentarian’s; it is less assertive, impartial, proclamatory, or didactic: “The text must present more than information”, writes Lopate, “it must have a strong, personal point of view. The standard documentary voiceover which tells us, say, about the annual herring yield is fundamentally journalistic, not essayistic” ( ibid .: 19). The documentary’s typically omniscient mode of address is communal and collective. The essay, by contrast, invites us to adopt a more singular spectatorial position. It speaks to us as embodied individuals rather than as an undifferentiated mass. As Laura Rascaroli observes, the essay film’s argument is less “closed”, and its “rhetoric is such that it opens up problems, and interrogates the spectator; instead of guiding her through emotional and intellectual response, the essay urges her to engage individually with the film” (2008: 35).

While the essay form can be very rewarding, it would obviously be unwise to consign digital film criticism to such a Procrustean bed. We can all agree that the video essay – or, if we want to avoid the restricting connotations of the latter term: audiovisual film criticism – would benefit both from more documentary and from more avant-garde practices. Indeed, it seems to me that, among academics, it is the avant-gardist brand of audiovisual criticism that is most prevalent. For example, the recently launched, and tellingly titled, online journal Audiovisual Thinking ( 7 ) largely consists of experimental videos. Vectors is another online journal in a similar vein, promoting itself as “a fusion of old and new media in order to foster ways of knowing and seeing that expand the rigid text-based paradigms of traditional scholarship”. ( 8 ) While this work is highly varied and very hard to categorize, at least parts of it might be said to share some affinities with certain pre-existing, though somewhat marginal and interrelated, practices. Thus, some pieces appear to have a theoretical agenda, calling to mind the tradition of scholar-filmmakers like Noël Burch, Laura Mulvey, and Peter Wollen. Other pieces seem inspired by self-reflexive, avant-garde art engaging in political activism, recalling for example the efforts of situationist filmmakers like Guy Debord. Accordingly, Eric Faden, a prominent advocate and practitioner of multimedia-based scholarship, writes that “media stylos” or “critical media” (as he calls his video essays) consist of “using moving images to engage and critique themselves; moving images illustrating theory; or even moving images revealing the labor of their own construction” (2008: n.p.).

These efforts are interesting and rewarding, for there is no clear-cut line that neatly separates academic from artistic ventures in all cases, or at all times. Of course, most products and practices we encounter can be assigned exclusively and conclusively to one realm: It is either art or scholarship, and distinctions can be made comfortably enough, based on generic conventions, for example, or institutional affiliation. But it is also self-evident that there will be overlaps and limit cases. Most elementarily, artworks can be informed by academic theories or concepts (from philosophy, say, or narratology, or psychoanalysis), while an awareness and understanding of the craft that has gone into a work of art may sharpen scholars’ analytical and theoretical prowess.

Seeking out grey areas, exploring intersections and reciprocities, can be fruitful, and it swiftly demonstrates how random the boundaries between the arts and the academy can be. In some cases, artists and scholars appear, by and large, to engage in the same basic enterprise, except that they fall back on different modes of discourse. But this is hardly a revelation. After all, debates about the distinctions and interdependencies between literature and philosophy can be traced back at least to Plato. ( 9 ) It is, or ought to be, incontrovertible that the borderline between adjacent fields is not determined once and for all by the intrinsic features of the respective phenomena themselves. Nevertheless, the fact that the dividing line could easily have been drawn differently does not mean that it might as well be drawn anywhere. The ways in which we compartmentalize artistic and scholarly activities and creations are obviously not wholly natural, but neither are they completely arbitrary. Over time, the two domains have developed mostly distinct, if occasionally converging, rules and habits. These conventions continue to evolve, of course, but there is considerable continuity, and the pragmatic partitions remain because they have been found to serve certain purposes quite well.

Consequently, while I would certainly not discourage audiovisual scholarship that approaches experimental and “performative” modes of inquiry and communication, this is not where I think the greatest potential of audiovisual film criticism lies. I find that it adopts too readily the conceptual abstractionism of the artistic avant-garde, and does not strive hard enough to preserve the particular competencies of film scholars as scholars : the ability to not just engage with complex thought, but to pull it into focus, and to articulate and communicate those ideas clearly. ( 10 ) I share Lopate’s desire to see more intellectually ambitious work that endeavors not just to get us to think – though there is nothing wrong with that, of course – but “also tells us what its author thinks” (1992: 20).

Of course, I share the concern of many video essayists that the audiovisual material should not serve simply as ornamentation, but ought to contribute something that mere text on its own cannot. I agree with Faden that many electronic journals simply replicate traditional print journals, only on a computer screen, “same dense content now only more difficult to read” (2008, n.p.). But I think he overstates the differences between print-based and multimedia-based scholarship when he writes that:

Traditional scholarship aspires to exhaustion, to be the definitive, end-all-be-all, last word on a particular subject. The media stylo, by contrast, suggests possibilities – it is not the end of scholarly inquiry; it is the beginning. It explores and experiments and is designed just as much to inspire as to convince (…) In a key difference, the media stylo moves scholarship beyond just creating knowledge and takes on an aesthetic, poetic function (ibid).

I do not think this adds up to a relevant distinction between print-based and multimedia-based scholarship. Rather, Faden arbitrarily maps the different means of expression onto different epistemological ideals and procedures, which seem to roughly correspond to the old – and admittedly hazy – distinction between continental and analytical philosophy. Thus, on the one hand, Faden’s description of the media stylo would be just as applicable to the work of many influential thinkers that formulated their ideas in the form of print: In Critical Excess , Colin Davis points out that “What matters for Heidegger is the philosophical yield of his readings, not their critical pursuasiveness” (2010: 24), while Deleuze “wanted to create something new through his encounters with [texts and films]” (ibid: 56); Zizek, meanwhile, “wavers between patient, scholarly coherence-building and outrageous leaps of the interpreting imagination”, and “relies more on assertion than argument” (ibid: 128). Harold Bloom wrote that “all criticism is prose poetry” (1973: 95), while Derrida preferred to say that he wrote “towards” rather than “about” texts (1992: 62).

On the other hand, audiovisual scholarship may of course adopt a more conventional and pedagogical means of inquiry and presentation, and I think there is much to be gained from exploring more carefully the possibilities offered by more expository – “documentary”, if you will – modes of audiovisual film criticism. And to be sure, there are examples. Another online journal, Mediascape , ( 11 ) has published some video essays whose rhetoric is more straightforwardly explicatory than interrogative or associative. Other web sites target a more general audience of cineastes. Moving Image Source ( 12 ) contains many video essays, predominantly by Matt Zoller Seitz, with clear trains of thought and voiceover narration to guide the viewer. Critic and filmmaker Kevin B. Lee ( 13 ) is another frequent contributor. Zoller Seitz also curates Press Play – a blog springing from Indiewire , a daily news site for independent filmmakers – which consists mostly of video essays.

However, the contributors to such web sites are rarely academics; they tend instead to be freelance writers, critics, or filmmakers. This observation is not offered as a form of critique, of course, but rather as an indication of the extent to which academics have been hesitant to explore audiovisual scholarship, except as an avant-garde practice. One recent and promising project is Audiovisualcy , ( 14 ) whose subtitle ( Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies ) and self-presentation (“An online forum for video essays about films and moving image texts, film and moving image studies, and film theory”) suggest a more scholarly profile. But while there are original contributions, it functions more like an archive, collecting video essays from around the Internet, Consequently, it largely resembles and replicates what is available on web sites like Press Play .

I want to emphasize that these are all valuable contributions to film culture, ( 15 ) so I hope I do not sound too critical or prescriptive when I say I believe the format can be put to even better use, at least from a scholarly perspective. First and foremost, I would like to see audiovisual film criticism offer more ideas, in greater detail and greater depth. Most of the efforts so far tend to be relatively short, usually somewhere around ten minutes. ( 16 ) It is a tall order indeed, of course, but it is possible to envisage audiovisual work as densely informational and intellectually ambitious as a traditional scholarly article. ( 17 ) Certainly, recourse to visual quotations often eliminates the need for exposition, ( 18 ) but I also tend to agree with Lopate that – contrary to the utopianism of Alexandre Astruc’s famous 1948 article “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo” – the camera “is not a pencil, and it is rather difficult to think with” (1992: 19). Audiovisual film critics should not accept too uncritically the old filmmaking maxim show, don’t tell . Now, I certainly do not want to foreclose too hastily any avenues yet to be pursued; we should experiment with the genre and not try to settle in advance the best way forward. Thus I will simply assert that in my, admittedly tentative, vision for the most fully-realized audiovisual film criticism of the future, it is still text – whether written or spoken – which does the heavy lifting in opening its author’s mind to us.

There is an understandable concern that, having added moving images to its toolbox, audiovisual criticism ought to contribute or express something that mere text cannot. To be sure, the visuals should not simply serve as illustration, if by that we mean mere ornamentation. However, I fail to see how they could be “merely” decorative as long as they are sensibly selected and utilized. Imagine famous exemplars of historical-theoretical film criticism like Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” or Tom Gunning’s “The Cinema of Attractions” as voiceovers, accompanied by illustrative film clips: Perhaps it would not literally add new insights – it might, of course, but they would be hard to spell out hypothetically – but it would, I think, help get some of the authors’ points across with greater immediacy and precision, or make the texts accessible to a wider audience. It probably would not be worth the effort to visually illustrate these texts, but surely there are good reasons to think it would have added something of value.

Others would benefit more; say, Raymond Bellour’s renowned examination of twelve shots from Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep , “The Obvious and the Code”. Formalist studies would obviously be a prime candidate: David Bordwell – who uses frame enlargements more extensively and skillfully than anyone to illustrate his observations – would profit immensely. Just imagine his analyses – of depth staging strategies, ( 19 ) of action sequences in Hong Kong films ( 20 ), or of intensified continuity in modern blockbusters ( 21 ) – with the added benefit of moving images, complete with side-by-side comparisons of films from different periods and traditions. Clearly, the benefits to film studies would be considerable.

All kinds of close analyses, whether hermeneutic or descriptive, would stand to gain: mise-en-scene criticism, for example, or statistical style analysis, or the interpretation of themes, symbols and intertextual references. Generally, it would make film criticism richer: not just more reliable and verifiable, but more enjoyable and accessible as well. Traditional print criticism of the academic variety undeniably tends to place huge demands on, or faith in, the reader’s visual memory. Sophie Fiennes’ The Pervert’s Guide to the Cinema (2006) is an intriguing case in that regard.  A 150-minute “documentary” in which philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek, embedded in the diegesis, pontificates on the meaning of individual films, and on the cinema in general, richly illustrated with clips, hints at how visual quotations may serve to exemplify and clarify ideas – even if the film reads more like a general introduction to Zizek’s thought than an in-depth, concentrated examination of a distinct issue. ( 22 )

Commentaries on DVDs by filmmakers, critics, and historians may also hint at some of the forms that digital film criticism can take, though this genre has a serious drawback: the voiceover is at the mercy of – or forever playing catch-up with – the film’s linear, temporal unfolding. As Adrian Martin observes, this means that the voiceover narration tends to “coincide only loosely with the moment-by-moment flow of the film”, making it “easy to more or less ignore the film and offer a standard lecture on its context, background information, director biography, etc.” (2010: n.p.). ( 23 ) In the digital film criticism that I have in mind, however, text and image are carefully coordinated or “co-written”. Thus, the video essayist can arrest the action, for example by freezing the frame, to develop a detailed argument about shot composition, or inserting footage from other movies as points of comparison.

Other familiar frames of reference for audiovisual film criticism are the academic lecture and the conference presentation, both of which typically combine the spoken word, moving and still images, and text in the form of bullet points or quotations. All of these elements could enter into the video essay as well, so one template for the genre is a lecture over which the presenter has full control. Delays, distractions, technical hiccups, digressions, nervousness, false starts, and lapses of memory can all be eliminated. Rather, the video essayist can fine-tune every detail of the presentation in order to present an argument with maximum precision and clarity.

So far I have concentrated on how visual quotations may enhance the kind of criticism and analysis that film scholars and students are used to reading. There can be no doubt that the ability to make use of moving images allows the critic to express ideas more accurately and vividly. The value of this should not be underestimated. Still, the greatest cause for excitement is perhaps the prospect that the visuals may push thought further. This is a tricky point to demonstrate, of course, though I will try to hint at what I have in mind by way of an example: In 2009 I wrote an article on intertextuality in the HBO television series The Wire (2002-2008), noting that that the drug raid on Hamsterdam in the season 3 finale invokes Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) by, amongst other things, using the same music (Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”). In short, I made the case that this parallel, when considered in the context of other references and analogies, establishes certain emotionally and ideologically charged associations that contribute to the The Wire’s sociopolitical concerns. Having since started to experiment with audiovisual criticism it strikes me, when I see these scenes again, that there are additional semblances at the level of form that also merit consideration. To be more precise – though it is difficult to be too precise without recourse to the audiovisuals – the two attacks are similarly filmed in terms of sequencing, camera placement, and sound and image editing, the cumulative effect of which, in both The Wire and Apocalypse Now , is to create an intriguing contrast between the narrational and the moral points of view.

Although I was vaguely aware of these issues when I wrote the initial article, it never really occurred to me to fully think them through and include them in the study. Because I was creating a text-based analysis, I did not find this hunch worth pursuing. I intuitively sensed that, without the ability to quote the two objects of study adequately, it would have been too difficult and laborious to get my points across to the reader. And even if it were possible, it might not have been worth it, as it would probably have made the text terribly exposition-heavy and dull. Had I instead been composing an audiovisual piece of criticism, I am quite confident that I would have pressed on and explored these ideas in greater detail and depth.

As research for a book project as well as for a video essay on The Wire , ( 24 ) I recently rewatched all five seasons of the series, and it struck me how potently the different means of expression shape thought. For example, with the audiovisual essay I am putting together in mind, other features of the show announce themselves as candidates for further reflection and analysis, such as acting, dialogue and delivery, and character complexity. Media scholar Anders Johansen has made a general observation that is pertinent here: “When I work with the same material in different media, I see it from slightly different angles. I do not search the archive in the same way when I am writing a book as when I am building a database […] The medium is a means of investigation” (2011: 73 [author’s translation]). In other words, different means of expression also constitute different instruments of contemplation. We use words, images, and sounds not merely to capture and pass on pre-existing and fully-formed ideas, but also as thinking devices. By confining film criticism exclusively to text and still images, we are simply not using every piece of intellectual equipment potentially available to us.

Admittedly, the proposals set forth in this article may be purely utopian. Criticism that is as rich in information, knowledge and ideas as an academic article, accompanied by carefully edited audiovisuals to illustrate and exemplify – all of it conceived as a single, cohesive intellectual enterprise – is obviously hugely challenging. For example, many scholars simply lack the practical know-how required to make video essays, though at least ripping DVDs and embedding clips in Keynote or Powerpoint presentations is becoming increasingly common. ( 25 )

Of course, those who are proficient may still not find it worth the effort. Firstly, it is very time-consuming to extract all the clips, and then to edit them, before synchronizing the visuals and the text/voiceover so that everything comes together as an integrated, unitary argument. Secondly, there are few, if any, publication outlets for such work that bring the institutional rewards that would make the quest worthwhile. Particularly younger scholars who have not yet secured permanent positions – precisely those, it seems reasonable to think, who are most likely to possess the required technological skills – are expected to publish frequently and in prestigious journals. Both of these expectations would be hard to meet for devoted video essayists. To put it bluntly, then, there are simply few incentives to undertake serious audiovisual work for academics today (though it is also conceivable, of course, that swimming against the stream might be a wise – if rather riskier – career move for newcomers).

Copyright is another obstacle to audiovisual film criticism. Currently, copyright norms and regulations are confusing and poorly understood. Even though European legal systems give protection for the use of copyrighted materials for critical and educational aims, media scholars have generally not exercised their right to quote strongly enough. Universities and university presses, who ought to spearhead the digital rights campaign, tend to adopt absurdly conservative safety-first policies. This is regrettable, as it may lead to “a recalibration of the law itself towards a less permissive setting” (Jaszi, 2007: n.p.). In the US, the situation is somewhat healthier. Organizations like the Center for Social Media and The Electronic Frontier Foundation have lobbied intensely and successfully to defend the American public’s digital rights. Their efforts have been crucial in securing new exemptions to the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as when circumventing copy protections on DVDs for purposes of criticism was made legal for film and media educators and students in July 2010. ( 26 ) In Europe, though, it is still illegal to bypass DVD encryption, even when it is done in order to create works that are wholly innocent. Thus, while it is permissible to use film clips in audiovisual film criticism, it is unlawful to get around the encryption that would make it possible to create said clips in the first place. Moreover, in the US fair use guidelines ( 27 ) have been created for a number of practices, including for scholarly research in communication, ( 28 ) for online video, ( 29 ) and for teaching for film and media educators. ( 30 )

Clearly, there are considerable practical and legal obstacles on the path to the brave new world of audiovisual film criticism. Still, the potential rewards are such that it is tempting to paraphrase Lopate’s concluding remarks (1992: 22) on his centaur genre, half-text, half-film: I will go on patiently stroking the embers of the form as I envision it, convinced that the truly great audiovisual film criticism has yet to be made, and that this succulent opportunity awaits the daring critic of the future.

( 1 ) The rest of the article refers exclusively to film. This is merely to steer clear of awkward phrasings, however. It is simply implied that what I have to say about digital film criticism applies to digital television criticism as well.

( 2 ) I am not suggesting that this kind of film criticism must be performed by academics, or be founded on scholarly conventions. Indeed, part of the promise of digital film criticism is that it may challenge the often overly rigid distinctions between “professional” and “amateur” practices. What I have in mind, rather, is measured and reflective criticism more generally – i.e. responses that are intellectually ambitious, informed by a profound understanding of the medium’s expressive resources and history, and strive to offer up more than mere opinions and consumer guidance – of which academic film criticism at present is the prototypical example.

( 3 ) See Adrian Martin’s contribution to this issue of Frames in which he discusses ekphrasis .

( 4 ) For a detailed comparison of frames captured from DVD and frames photographed from celluloid, see Kawin, 2008.

( 5 ) See http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/the-substance-of-style-20091109 .

( 6 ) See http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/10/close_up_the_movie_essay.html .

( 7 )  See www.audiovisualthinking.org . The journal is not dedicated to film criticism, but describes itself as “ the world’s first journal of academic videos about audiovisuality, communication and media. The journal is a pioneering forum where academics and educators can articulate, conceptualize and disseminate their research about audiovisuality and audiovisual culture through the medium of video”.

( 8 )  http://vectorsjournal.org/journal/index.php?page=Introduction

( 9 ) For a useful overview of the ancient quarrel between literature and philosophy, see chapter 1 in Davis (2010).

( 10 ) Research is not a popularity contest, of course, and public perception should not be allowed to dictate findings or methodologies. But given the severe crisis that the humanities find themselves in today, it seems wise to make a concerted effort to reach out and reconnect with the public at large. Video essays could well be a useful way for film and media scholars to reach audiences that do not seek out the kinds of highly specialized academic journals and books where most studies are published. It is doubtful, however, that uncompromisingly experimental efforts will realize this potential. That is more likely to alienate tax payers further, exacerbating the image problem that the humanities suffer from, as excessively cloistered and esoteric.

( 11 )  See http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/ .

( 12 )  See http://www.movingimagesource.us/ .

( 13 ) See http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/ .

( 14 ) Online at: https://vimeo.com/groups/audiovisualcy .

( 15 ) Fine individual efforts include Benjamin Sampson’s visual study of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence , available from   http://la.remap.ucla.edu/mias/ben/index.php/Main_Page ; Catherine Grant’s “Unsentimental Education: On Claude Chabrol’s Les Bonnes Femmes ”, available from http://filmanalytical.blogspot.com/2010/06/unsentimental-education-on-claude.html ; Steven Santos’s audiovisual essays on Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Fritz Lang’s M , available from http://vimeo.com/channels/127338 ; and Matthias Stork’s two-part essay on what he calls “chaos cinema”, available from http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video_essay_matthias_stork_calls_out_the_chaos_cinema .

( 16 ) There are some longer pieces in which different facets of a broad topic are published in installments. One example is Press Play’s “Magic and Light: The Films of Steven Spielberg”, which consists of six discrete chapters, some of which are even further divided into separate parts.

( 17 ) What I have in mind is something akin to Richard Misek’s Mapping Rohmer: A Research Journey Through Paris , an excerpt of which was presented at the Remix Cinema workshop in Oxford on March 24, 2011. It is shown in its entirety here  in this issue of Frames .

( 18 )  A nice example is Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything Is a Remix” series. For example, part two manages, in just under three minutes, to sum up the numerous sources of inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977) more clearly and persuasively than many an article could. See http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-part-2/ .

( 19 )  See for example Bordwell (1997).

( 20 )  See Bordwell (2000).

( 21 ) See Bordwell (2002).

( 22 ) Of course, audiovisual criticism need not function as stand-alone creations, but may usefully supplement (or be supplemented by) print-based work.

( 23 )  There are ways around this problem, however. See Rosenbaum (2010). For more on the practical challenges of DVD commentaries, see Bennett and Brown (2008).

( 24 ) This video essay “Style in The Wire ”, together with a text which discusses its making both appear  here in this issue of Frames .

( 25 )  As is information about how to go about it. See Mittell (2010).

( 26 ) See two other significant discussions of ‘fair use’ and copyright in this issue of Frames by Steve Anderson and Jaimie Baron .

( 27 ) Such guidelines have no legal authority, but they have often proved highly useful, as they specify what practices and procedures agents in some creative community – aided by input from legal experts – consider fair. For example, the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use has made it far easier and less risky for documentarians to use copyright material in their films. See Aufdeheide and Jaszi (2007).

( 28 ) See http://www.centerforsocialmedia.orghttps://framescinemajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WEB_ICA_CODE.pdf .

( 29 ) See http://www.centerforsocialmedia.orghttps://framescinemajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/online_best_practices_in_fair_use.pdf .

( 30 ) See http://digital.lib.pdx.edu/resources/SCMSBestPracticesforFairUseinTeaching-Final.pdf .

Bibliography:

Aufdeheide P and Jaszi P (2007): “Fair Use and Best Practices: Surprising Success”, in Intellectual Property Today , vol. 14, no. 10.

Bellour R (1974): “The Obvious and the Code”, in Screen , vol. 15, no. 4: 7-17

Bellour R (1975): “The Unattainable Text”, in Screen , vol. 16, no. 3: 19-27.

Bennett J and Brown T (2008): “The Place, Purpose, and Practice of the BFI’s DVD Collection and the Academic Film Commentary: An Interview with Caroline Millar and Ginette Vincendeau”, in Bennett J and Brown T (eds.), Film and Television After DVD . New York: Routledge, 116-128.

Bloom H (1973): The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry , London, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Bordwell D (1997): On the History of Film Style , Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press.

Bordwell D (2000): Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment , Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press.

Bordwell D (2002): “Intensified Continuity Visual Style in Contemporary American Film”, in Film Quarterly , vol. 55, no. 3: 16-28.

Davis C (2010): Critical Excess. Overreading in Derrida, Deleuze, Levinas, Zizek and Cavell , Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Derrida J (1992): “This Strange Institition Called Literature”. An Interview with Jacques Derrida, in Attridge D (ed.), Acts of Literature , London: Routledge.

Gunning T (1990): “The Cinema of Attractions. Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant- Garde”, in Elsaesser T (ed.), Early Cinema: Space – Frame – Narrative , London: BFI Publishing, 56-62.

Jaszi, Peter (2007): Copyright, Fair Use and Motion Pictures , available from http://www.centerforsocialmedia.orghttps://framescinemajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/documents/pages/fairuse_motionpictures.pdf .

Johansen, Anders (2011): “Skrivingen er et høreapparat for den som virkelig lytter” [“Writing Is a Hearing Aid for Those Who Truly Listen”], in Prosa , no. 1, vol. 11.

Kawin, Bruce (2008): ”Video Frame Enlargements”, in Film Quarterly , vol. 63, no. 3: 52-57.

Lopate, Phillip (1992): ”In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film”, in The Threepenny Review , no. 48: 19-22.

Martin, Adrian (2010): “A Voice Too Much”, in De Filmkrant , available from http://www.filmkrant.nl/av/org/filmkran/archief/fk322/engls322.html .

Mittell, Jason (2010): “How to Rip DVD Clips”, in The Chronicle of Higher Education , available from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-to-rip-dvd-clips/26090 .

Mulvey, Laura (1975): “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, in Screen , vol. 16, no. 3: 6-18.

Rascaroli, Laura (2008): “The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments”, in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media , vol. 49, no. 2: 24-47.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan (2010): “The Mosaic Approach”, in Moving Image Source , available from http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/the-mosaic-approach-20100818 .

Thompson, Kristin (2006): “Film educators no longer criminals”, available from http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=152 .

Copyright :

Frames #1 Film and Moving Images Studies Re-Born Digital? 2012-07-02, this article © Erlend Lavik . This article has been blind peer-reviewed.

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Video script writing 101: how-to steps + templates and examples.

It’s no secret: v ideo gets more engagement  and drives more growth than any other type of media.

But you’ll only reap the benefits if your marketing videos are at least decently produced.

That doesn’t mean every video needs a Hollywood budget, but you  do  need to put time into planning your video and writing a video script (or asking AI to write one for you).

The good news? Learning how to write a good video script is easier than it looks. This guide covers the basics of writing a script and gives you examples to help you write your own.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• How to script a video with AI .
• How to plan your script.
• Best practices for writing a script.
• Tips for choosing the “right” kind of script.
• Example video scripts to jog your creativity.

Stay tuned until the end and we’ll also walk you through our favorite ready-to-edit presentation, promo, and explainer video script templates available from  Biteable .

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Video scripts made easy: Start with a Biteable template

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Biteable’s online video-making software offers hundreds of  video templates  to jump-start your script-writing creativity.

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How to script a video with AI

The easiest way to script and create videos is with a little help from your newest assistant: AI. Biteable’s AI-powered Automated Video Assistant (AVA) scripts and creates your video with the click of a button.

Read your complete guide to scripting and creating videos with AI for the step-by-step details.

How to write a video script

Before we go anywhere with video, let’s be clear about this: keep it simple. As you plan your video and write your script, it’s all too easy to start throwing all sorts of cool ideas out. After all, you can do anything in a video, right?

With an unlimited budget, sure. But we’re willing to bet your budget is limited. So keep your videos as simple as possible. You’d be surprised how much work it takes to produce very minimal on-screen effects.

Planning your video script

With all that in mind, start planning your script. Some writers call this “ prewriting ”.

1. Identify your audience.

This is a staple in any sort of marketing or copywriting. You need to address a very specific customer with your content, otherwise it won’t resonate. It can be tempting to make it as broad as possible in order to address every potential customer. Avoid this temptation. Something that’s for everybody appeals to nobody.

If you need help identifying who you want to reach, go through the exercises on this  worksheet  from digitalmarketer.com.

2. Choose a goal

Next you need to know what the point of the video is. This will depend on where your audience will see the video, what stage of the marketing funnel the video will be used at, and what you want viewers to do after they watch the video, and the  key performance indicators  you use to track your success.

But if you want viewers to do something specific after seeing the video, you’ll need a call to action. Just make sure your call to action aligns with the purpose of the video. Have a look at this video for FreshBooks. The purpose of the video is quite clear, even if it’s not explicitly stated.

3. Decide on a central character

If your video features too many people, it will be difficult to follow and the focus will stray from the main point. Identifying the primary character does two things:

• It simplifies and focuses your video.
• It pushes you toward creating a story (if your video needs it).

Some videos, like a product overview, have very little story in them. However, it’s still best if a single person does most of the talking. If you’re producing a video with a narrative arc, it’s best to focus on the main character.

In either case, you need to know who’s going to be on screen most of the time. If you need two or more people in the video, choose one person to show for a majority of the screen time.

Bonus tip: If you can, use the same person as the spokesperson in all your videos. This creates continuity and familiarity in your video content. That’s why brands often create characters that almost function as mascots, like Flo from Progressive.

4. Identify the main point of the video

This boils down to a very simple exercise: tell someone why they should watch this video in one sentence.

When you start writing your script, put the answer to this question as close to the beginning as possible. Let viewers know what they’re going to get right up front, and you’ll retain more viewers.

As a bonus, identifying the point of the video will also tell you what sort of video you need.

Writing your video script

If your planning is good, the writing will be fairly easy. You’ve already created your map. Just follow it.

5. Write out visual and audio elements.

This is super important if you’re doing any sort of voiceover with visuals that cut to different shots. But even if your video is a single shot of someone talking, write the visual and audio aspects into your script.

The script is a set of directions for whoever is shooting the video, and you want the video team to know, without a doubt, what’s supposed to be happening with both the visual and audio elements.

A simple table with two columns is an easy way to format your script. It’s easy to read and see how the video will look and sound. This is a brief two-column video script example:

Add as many boxes as you need to cover all the shots in your video.

6. Write your script, then trim to fit

Depending on the sort of video you’re making, you may need to cram everything into 15 or 30 seconds, or you could have a full three minutes or more to work with.

Either way, plan for 125 to 150 words of dialogue per minute.

But when you start writing, focus on saying everything you want to say. Once you’ve got all the dialogue written, check your word count, then start axing and rewording until it fits your time limit.

This method makes your script clear and concise. It forces you to keep only the dialogue you  need .

Here are a few brief tips for writing dialogue:

Speak directly to the audience.  Use “you” and talk to your viewers. It’s more personable, and people prefer being spoken to rather than being spoken at.

Write it the way you would say it.  Your audience isn’t going to read your script. So write what you would actually say, not what looks best on paper.

• Read your script out loud.  This is the only way to find out if your dialogue sounds natural. If you make changes, read it out loud again.

Once the dialogue is clean, you’ll know roughly how much footage you need to shoot and what shots you need. If you’re using a voiceover, be sure to shoot some extra footage to account for pauses in the dialogue and visuals that don’t make the cut.

Bonus tip: Use AI to get the first draft of your script. Use a chatbot like ChatGPT , or skip to the finished video with AVA — Biteable’s AI-powered Automated Video Assistant.

7. Stick to the video script (mostly)

This is technically not part of writing the script. But it’s related to writing your script. It boils down to one question: why bother writing the script if you’re not going to follow it? That’s like paying an architect to draw a floor plan, then just building your house all willy-nilly.

Once you start filming, follow your script as much as possible. Some minor changes are fine, and professional actors or voice actors can contribute some flair. Or, if you find you don’t have the resources to do what you planned, you may need to make changes or go back and rewrite the script.

But avoid making major changes to the script on the fly just because you think of something cool. Ad hoc changes and ad-libbing rarely turn out for the best. Explosions are cool, but don’t blow everything up just to have some fun.

How to write the right kind of video script

Marketing videos accomplish two things:

• They educate viewers.
• They persuade viewers.

Some videos only do one of the two and some do both, but we’re going to split the various types into one of these two categories to keep things simple.

Educational videos: Presentation and explainer video scripts (+ templates)

Presentation and explainer videos fall into the educational category.

These videos are usually for:

• Demonstrating how to do something.
• Explaining how your product or service works.
• Introducing what your brand does.

The keys to success with educational videos are brevity and visuals.

Concise information is easier to remember. That’s why phone numbers are seven digits long. So keep your video short and break it up into manageable blocks of information to help viewers retain what you’ve shown them.

Also, include relevant visuals to show and tell the viewer what you’re explaining, which will increase retention even more. Here’s an excellent explainer video from Mint:

It’s short (1:32), the visuals are relevant, and the dialogue is broken up into separate statements.

This explainer video from Dollar Shave Club is legendary:

Watch this one more than once, because it’s hilarious. But once you stop spitting coffee, notice how the dialogue is broken up into 10-15 second chunks, which are separated by funny visuals. Distinct, memorable blocks of information.

And just for giggles, here’s a bonus videos to get your inspired.

To help you create your own explainer or presentation video, Biteable offers  video templates  you can edit yourself. Here are a few presentation and explainer video script templates to get you started:

Persuasive videos: Promotional and commercial video scripts (+ templates)

Promotional and commercial videos are for getting people to do things. The action you’re after isn’t always an immediate purchase. You could use a persuasive video to get people to consume additional promotional content.

But, most often, promotional and commercial videos are for:

• Showing the benefits and features of your product or service.
• Demonstrating what separates your brand from competitors.
• Showcasing how your product or service will  improve your customer’s life .

Customers will often view these videos on social media or in a sidebar on a website. Getting to the point and keeping it short are non-negotiable. A call to action is mandatory as well.

These videos usually get watched with the sound off, so write your script and plan your visuals to work without sound. Including subtitles is also a good idea.

You might be thinking “great! I’ll save myself time and create a video with no dialogue!” That’s a perfectly good idea, but even if your video has no dialogue, don’t skip the script. Write a script for the visuals so you have a plan to work from.

Here are some examples of commercial videos that work well on multiple platforms:

Notice how short these are. Also note that all of them are consumable without sound. But the main takeaway from these videos is that you need to get attention, deliver your message, and get out before your viewer swipes you off their screen.

Video templates starter pack

We know that can be challenging, so we created a starter pack of video template collections you can use and edit yourself:

• Social media video templates .
• Video ad templates .
• Promotional video templates .
• Explainer video script templates .

Make your first video with Biteable

So you’ve got the knowledge. You’ve got the templates. You’ve got the video editor ( Biteable, of course ) and you’ve got the power. Now go forth and make some awesome videos.

Make stunning videos with ease.

Take the struggle out of team communication.

Try Biteable now.

• No credit card required
• No complicated design decisions
• No experience necessary

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development 

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting  students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page  if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

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AI Video Generator

Create high-quality videos with text to video technology. Powered by deep learning techniques, this AI Video Generator generates videos from descriptions you provide—ready for you to polish and refine.

Crank out more video content and ideas with Kapwing's AI Video Generator

Instantly turn any idea into a video. Kapwing’s AI video generator makes a high-quality video for you with short clips, subtitles, background music, and transitions.

Unlike with other video generators, you have full creative control. Make edits to any AI-generated video you get with over 100 features from the built-in video editor. You come with the topic. Kapwing AI does the rest for you.

How to generate AI video online

Start a new project and open AI tools by clicking on the lightbulb icon in the top left-hand corner of the editor.

Enter a video topic and describe video elements in full detail. Then, select the size, text style, and duration of your video. You can always customize these after. Generate a video, then make any necessary edits to your AI-generated video.

Explore the rest of the video suite for the full video editing experience—change the background music , upload your own video clips , record a voiceover , and more. Once you’re finished, click “Export project,” and download your final version to upload anywhere.

Create quality videos at scale with text to video AI

Kickstart every project with something by using AI generated videos to find a good starting point for quality video content. Creating videos with Kapwing's AI Video Generator gives the best results with detailed descriptions.

Produce quality videos without a learning curve

Jump into a fully-fledged video editing platform with an intuitive interface. Providing you with a large selection of subtitle style presets, Kapwing offers a smart feature that automatically caption videos so you don't need to manually type out closed captioning or subtitles every time.

Get video versions of any document, article, or essay

Instantly change the format of any block of text. Kapwing's Document to Video AI scans written content and creates a high-quality video for you, summarizing all the key points in your document. Only work on your content once, and publish it everywhere as an engaging video.

Turn rough drafts into professional videos with AI

Kapwing's B-Roll Generator feature scans your rough cut video and provides you with studio-grade stock footage and graphics to complete your video. Access a full creative suite with 100+ editing tools to create the exact high quality video you're imagining.

Try text to speech features for professional voiceovers

Perfect for explainer videos, training videos, or faceless voiceover videos , generate AI voices for the AI videos you've edited. Easily make a screen recording with the online screen recorder. Reach a global audience and translate video to the appropriate language in seconds—completely online.

Build an online presence on social media with video

Maximize each social channel by repurposing video content and creating short clips fit for every format. Turn written content into a video by importing the blog post URL to the blog post you want to make a video out of. Fine-tune it and meet your audience on leading video-first platforms.

Speed up video creation with a diverse range of AI tools

Lessen your video turnaround time to just minutes–not days. Never wait too long for a video to get edited and approved with collaborative video features and AI tools that speed up advanced edits like auto-transcribe or auto-cut .

Frequently Asked Questions

How do people make AI generated videos?

There are many online tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to create video content, including Kapwing and Synthesia. AI video tools usually give simple instructions to type out a topic or idea in the input text box, and the AI will generate a video for you instantly. We recommend using Kapwing to create videos with AI since they have a free AI video generator that allows you to edit the video afterwards, all in one place.

What is the AI that turns text into video?

With artificial intelligence (AI) and the demand for content creation rapidly growing, countless SaaS teams are racing to provide the best AI tool that turns text into video. Millions of content creators, social media marketers, and marketing agencies use Kapwing to create and edit their videos in one place, making it the best AI video generator that turns text to video for you in seconds.

How do I make a video from text?

Easily make a video from text by typing out an idea in Kapwing’s AI Video Generator, selecting the video format, and clicking “Generate video.” Make your AI-generated video fit any platform by resizing it to the preset formats optimized for YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Add your own finishes and human touch to your video by customizing the subtitles, changing the background music, and much more.

How many videos can I generate with Kapwing AI?

With a free account on Kapwing, you can have 2 credits for each generative AI tool. Create the best AI video to kickstart your project. Level up your video generation flow with unlimited usage of every premium AI-powered tool, including the AI Video Generator, AI Image Generator, Generative Fill, and much more.

Can I edit AI-generated videos in Kapwing?

Yes! Even better, you can generate video with AI in Kapwing and make any additional edits needed all in one place. With 100+ video editing tools, you're fully equipped with the essentials to create the best AI video for any video creation and ideation process.

What's different about Kapwing?

Kapwing is free to use for teams of any size. We also offer paid plans with additional features, storage, and support.

IELTS test format explained

Test takers who understand the format of IELTS are at an advantage. Make sure you’re familiar with how IELTS testing works.

There are two IELTS tests available, IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training . Both tests are graded in exactly the same way. 

You’ll take the first three parts of the test on the same day, in the following order: Listening, Reading and Writing (there are no breaks between these tests). Your Speaking test will be held either on the same day or seven days before or after that, depending on local arrangements.

The IELTS Listening test is designed to assess a wide range of listening skills, including how well you:

• understand main ideas and specific factual information
• recognise the opinions, attitudes and purpose of a speaker
• follow the development of an argument.

Take a free listening practice test.

You will need to read quickly and efficiently, and manage your time. You will be asked to read three different passages and respond to related questions in your IELTS Reading test. The content of the Reading test is different for IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training tests.

The IELTS Reading test is designed to assess a wide range of reading skills, including how well you:

• read for the general sense of a passage
• read for the main ideas
• read for detail
• understand inferences and implied meaning
• recognise a writer’s opinions, attitudes and purpose

Academic Reading

 general training reading.

Take a free reading practice test.

The IELTS Writing test is designed to assess a wide range of writing skills, including how well you:

• write a response appropriately
• organise ideas
• use a range of vocabulary and grammar accurately.

Academic Writing

General training writing.

Take a free writing practice test.

You will talk to a certified examiner in the IELTS Speaking test. The test is interactive and as close to a real-life situation as a test can get. A variety of accents may be used, and the test will be recorded.

The content of the IELTS Speaking test is the same for both the IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training tests.

The IELTS Speaking test is designed to assess a wide range of skills.

The examiner will want to see how well you can:

• communicate opinions and information on everyday topics and common experiences; to do this you will need to answer a range of questions
• speak at length on a given topic using appropriate language
• organise your ideas coherently
• express and justify your opinions
• analyse, discuss and speculate about issues.

Make sure that you relax and talk fluently. You will need to speak naturally.

Take a free speaking practice test.

Video call Speaking test

Many IELTS test centres will start delivering the IELTS Speaking test via video calls. This means more flexibility and more availability of IELTS Speaking tests.

You will take the video call Speaking test at an official IELTS test centre with the same high standard of identity verification. The test will be exactly the same as the in-person Speaking test in terms of content, scoring, timing, level of difficulty, question format and security arrangements.  Delivered by an IELTS Speaking Examiner, the video call Speaking test will maintain the face-to-face feature of the in-person Speaking test.

For more information, please contact us .