Film Studies in Motion: From audiovisual essay to academic research video

Introduction

“One of the great ironies of film study is that its ‘evidence’
(a term itself derived from Latin and meaning ‘out of the seen’)
has so limited a visibility in print form.”

Mark Parker and Deborah Parker (2011)




Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing output of videos investigating (or simply celebrating) cinematic works or film-related issues. While Eric Faden started making short ‘Media Stylo’-videos as early as 1998 (on the 50th anniversary of Alexandre Astruc’s seminal essay ‘The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: Le Caméra-Stylo’) and personally considered these to be equivalent to academic papers (Faden 2008), it was not until 2007 that videographic work – resembling the form that we know now – began to take shape. Around this time, Kevin B. Lee started posting excerpts of films online, which gradually evolved into videos with an essayistic character. In successive years, critic Matt Zoller Seitz, and graduate students in film like Matthias Stork, also took to editing software to illustrate their analytical findings on certain tendencies in cinema. These initial videos made use of voice-over to comment on assemblies of film excerpts, and thus provided analytical criticism in which the object of study could be watched as it was being discussed. The first trend to garner popularity in these types of videos would focus primarily on ‘authorial’ trademarks, and take the form of obsessive compilations or poetic ‘supercuts’ where entire oeuvres would be summarized by stringing together the most characteristic shots from a particular filmmaker. Perhaps the most prolific in this category are Kogonada and Nelson Carvajal. As Stork mentioned on the profile page of his Vimeo account (circa 2014), he intended to develop and “make a case for the video essay as a new form of criticism, scholarship and digital ‘pastiche’ filmmaking.”
            This type of video is often accompanied by a written text in which the motivation and analytical angle behind the video are disclosed. Although later works showed more theoretical promise, the rhetorical developments through which the audiovisual medium’s specific affordances could have been addressed have been scarce and inconsistent. On the one hand, this can be attributed to the lack of shared platforms that would allow for the evolution of a common poetics among these video-authors. On the other hand, online audiovisual media have historically been reserved for artistic and entertainment purposes, and have little footing in tradition as far as scholarly efforts are concerned. Exceptions from before the ‘YouTube-era’, the likes of Faden’s ‘media stylos’, are either untraceable or have been mostly lost. This often occurred when their technological platforms (with which they were essentially entwined) ceased to be supported. Nevertheless, these early pseudo- or proto-academic videos mark a noteworthy departure from traditional analytical and interpretative techniques of Film Studies which have, from a medial perspective, remained consistent throughout its entire history: text-based.

Audiovisual content is dominantly produced by critics, filmmakers (mostly editors), and  scholars but  basically allows for anyone with access to ripping and editing software. Though the amount of contributors is growing, most current output comes from these ‘usual suspects’. As we will show later on (especially in Chapters II and III), the work of this selection of authors is arguably facilitated by the inception and rise of available multimedia extensions of film (or ‘paratexts’) in general, dating back to the 1980s, as well as the technological advancements democratizing media production and distribution as far back as the 1950s.[1] Broadband Internet as we know it now, combined with the exponential growth in computational power, user-friendly tendencies in software development, affordability of both hard- and software, and file sharing technologies, allowed for all these movements to converge. Audiovisual materials became more easily accessible, as did the means to manipulate them. As the succession of Chapter I and II will illustrate, traits of these technology-driven developments echo throughout  current video  essay practice.[2]  Having an overview on such backdrop, we believe, allows us to better understand the current practices, and can facilitate an informed look into substantial ways of progressing the video essay by learning from these earlier tendencies and pitfalls. Whereas initially these videos were uploaded without a clear center, goal, targeted audience, or established institution, lately there have been initiatives to select, group, and even commission or evaluate  essayistic  videos. Existing publication platforms for scholarly work are in the process of finding ways to adapt to, and incorporate audiovisual work, while new online platforms and journals focusing on multimedia essays are being conceived. The most recent developments show websites or web periodicals that resemble more traditional journals (c.q.  allow  peer-reviewed publication) but are wholly centered upon video. Notable examples are Reverse Shot’s Moving Images Source; Indiewire’s PressPlay; TriQuarterly and Mediascape. More scholarly examples can be found in the Vimeo group Audiovisualcy; Seminar.net; Teaching Media; Audiovisual Thinking; Film Studies For Free; and most recently REFRAME’s The Audiovisual Essay, and [in]Transition, which defines itself as “the first peer-reviewed academic journal of  videographic  film and moving image studies”.[3] These advances show that the audiovisual format is fully in development, as is the theory that attempts to describe, classify, and ultimately appropriate and legitimize the novel practice (which efforts, in fact, are carried out in large part by the same people that produce the videos – among others Faden 2008, Grant 2011, Lavik 2012 and 2012a, Proctor 2013, Lee 2013, and Marshall 2013). Nevertheless, these journals and other gatekeepers often select and share videos from the same pool of audiovisual works, where material can range from three hours to three years old. For instance, the first curated issue of [in]Transition – one of the academically devoted attempts at an online journal presenting video – came out in February 2014 featuring Kogonada’s “What is Neorealism?” video, which stems from May 2013.


After a short period of discovery and curated publication of existing video material on the newly established online sites, today[4] mainstream sites, professional film distributors, as well as platforms with academic ambitions begun to actively stimulate production, and call for original and exclusive audiovisual essays.[5]
 
 

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