essay ui video viral

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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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.

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Mar 15, 2019

10 Key Attributes of Viral Videos

• Display and Video Advertising

Viral videos are a marketer’s dream. Whether you get lucky and create something for free that spreads across social media channels or invest some serious cash to get the results you want, a viral video is marketing gold.

So, what does it take to go viral? In some cases, it might just be dumb luck, but truth be told, you have to give it your best effort to create something unusual to get people to hit that share button. Here are 10 key attributes that can help your videos go viral.

1. Astounding Personality

If you are using a speaker, they have to be astounding.

Memorable speakers have the same effect as the world’s best stand-up comedian or the emotional pull of Martin Luther King Jr. Astounding speakers can even be downright annoying or controversial to get your video to go viral. They have to generate intentional or unintentional laughs, move people to tears, get people riled up, or make people feel good. These are all the things that will trigger the need to share your videos.

Just remember that if you are going the controversial route, you could get more bad press than good. A good speaker doesn’t have to be someone famous. You might have a hidden talent in your office. That guy who has people dying of laughter at the water cooler, although a tad disruptive to productivity, might be just what you need to create an online persona people will love.

2. Instant Attention Grabber

We all know that today’s consumer has an attention span of about eight seconds . That means you’ve got to grab their attention almost instantly. It starts with a thought-provoking headline that will capture attention in the endless scroll of titles.

Use humour, a question, intrigue, or “wackiness” to get people to click on your video.

Next, make sure that the thumbnail you choose for your video is not something horrific such as the speaker in mid speech with an out of focus and scary face. Instead, choose an actual thumbnail specifically for the purposes of appearing clickable alongside that awe-inspiring headline.

Finally, a viral video captures the viewer’s attention within seconds of hitting play. That means avoiding intros and build-ups that will have people clicking away rather than clicking the share icon. Video is designed to entertain, even if your goal is to inform.

3. Story Time

Regardless of what you are trying to sell, your video has to tell a story . In other words, have a point. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering either.

More than anything, it just has to be relatable to people who would use your product or service. And it doesn’t even necessarily have to be directly selling your brand. It just has to make a logical connection between what your story has to say and what your followers will react to emotionally.

An excellent storytelling example is American Greetings' promotion for Mother's Day. They used a clever job interview format that outlines an impossible position. It turns out at the end that they are interviewing for a mom. It makes a poignant point without ever mentioning their product. Instead, it gets across the importance of moms and how you should always let her know how grateful you are.

4. Short But Sweet

This one ties back to attention span. If your video is going to go on and on, you will lose people. Most people don't have the time to sit and watch an endless video. They are saving that time for binge-watching their favourite television shows. According to the New York Times, you’ve got about 60-seconds to tell your story .

Make sure you’ve scripted for around the one-minute mark if you want to keep people interested. Just keep in mind that the NYT article mentioned this was for 44% of those surveyed. If you have something really good and entertaining, you might get away with more seconds.

5. Make ‘Em Laugh

You can never go wrong with humour. That tends to lead to more social sharing. Just make sure you don’t get too caught up in laughs that no one will get other than your marketing team. You’ve got to go for the universal laughs that are more likely to hit the funny bone of most of your audience.

Humour is uplifting and can also provide some insight into how well you know your audience. When people feel you get them, they are more inclined to want to use your product. Also, people want to be the one in their group of friends who finds the funniest things to share.

An example of how you can use humour to create viral videos is a video called "The Process" by Aviation Gin. On this video, Ryan Renolds mocks the clichéd ads used by its competitors. It's a creative and humorous video where Reynolds relays in excruciating but hilarious detail all the thought and care that goes into the gin-making process.

6. Other Emotions

Happiness is not the only emotion that can cause a video to go viral. Creating an emotional response in any form of advertising has a powerful and long-lasting effect. Emotion encourages sharing. A touching story that makes people sad or angry will do wonders for your brand. It shows you care as well. According to a Nielson report, emotional ads lead to 23% more in sales lifts.

As well, emotional ads also remain in our memories longer . The key is to choose the right emotion for your brand. When triggering negative emotions, you have to be sure your brand can resolve that negativity in some way.

7. Get Inspiration from Pop Culture

Using something in the news that might hit notes with your customers can work well. It can be touchy, so be careful. As long as it is widespread, and people will recognize what you are doing, parodying a common news story can work well because it is trending and also funny. You’ll kill two birds with one stone.

Along the lines of using news for ideas, pop culture can work very well. You can get inspiration from a popular or annoying song or play off of something incredibly popular like Game of Thrones. It can tie into a recent movie or favorite pop culture character. The options are endless.

8. Don’t Forget Your Brand

Using everything in your power to connect with people through viral videos doesn’t mean you should go so far off the rails that people can’t make the connection to your brand. Make sure no matter what approach you choose, you stay on brand.

Going viral to the world might sound fantastic, but if no one knows what it has to do with your brand, it will not get the results you want, which is to raise brand awareness and gain some sales.

9. User-Generated Content

This free ride can really work well. No one knows your brand better than your customers. Their stories will touch people in a different way than your internally generated content. It is cost effective as well.

You can even start a competition amongst followers who are anxious to get their videos shared. Throw a content contest, and you will have instant access to some interesting videos that are ready to share.

An excellent example is GoPro, which took a unique approach to content by using videos created by customers. The user is a fireman, and his story is intriguing without ever mentioning GoPro. Instead, it is the video he took that tells the story of how he used his GoPro. It works on a number of levels most of which are emotional.

10. Reality Check

Use real situations to help promote a sense of awareness. Your videos have to be authentic and not come across as staged or overly construed.

Real conversations, real footage of people participating in real situations, and even hidden-camera situations (with permission granted by participants after the recording) are all ways to use reality to reach your audience.

Add Video to your Digital Marketing Efforts

There are many methods you can use to create a viral video. Whether you choose laughter or tears, reality or farce, your own talent or the talent of your customers, adding video to your digital marketing efforts is one of the best ways to get noticed online.

Learn how to start adding videos to your digital marketing efforts and make them viral with a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing . Download a brochure today!

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The science behind viral videos

Four ingredients make videos more shareable and help us to understand what makes them so popular

By Dr Brent Coker, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne

It’s the Holy Grail for marketers – understanding what makes a video ad go viral. Research usually looks at what makes people share, since it’s assumed something goes viral because it’s shareable. But what makes something shareable? What motivates a person to tell others?

Viral videos have four things in common – four things that motivate us to share and drive up those coveted views on YouTube.

Self-intensification

Instinctively we want to grow and maintain our self-esteem, and one way to do this is to earn respect from others. Information that has value to others is shareable because it makes the sender look good. To signal gratification viewers ‘like’ the person who shared it. Movies that go viral almost always make the sharer look good.

Self-intensification can be earned by legitimising membership in a social group, such as a gothic sharing a gothic-style shirt, or by sharing something that is important about your character, such as a surfer sharing information about ocean pollution. But, perhaps the most popular method is to share information that is practically useful. Life-hacks that solve an everyday problem, like this speedy potato peeler from Russia, are hugely successful.

Think about a time when you were overcome with emotion – perhaps you had a terrifying experience riding a roller coaster, or maybe you won a prize in a competition. Likely you felt compelled to tell others about it. When people experience strong emotions, the mind naturally attempts to make sense of what happened and this makes them want to share the experience with others. In the same way, the more emotion a video packs in, the more likely it’ll be shared.

Only intense emotions will be shared. One way to increase the intensity of emotion is to shift people rapidly from a negative emotion to a positive emotion, or vice versa. The not-for-profit organisation Save the Children did this really well with their viral advertisement ‘Most Shocking Second a Day’, achieving more than 1 million shares.

It features a series of one-second scenes of memorable moments in a young girl’s life. The girl’s life is one that people are used to living in the Western world, with flat screen TVs, music lessons, and an abundance of food choices. About 20 seconds into the ad, it becomes clear the country the girl lives in is on the verge of war. The scenes switch from times of happiness to times of terror and sadness as the conflict reaches the girl’s neighbourhood. The fighting forces her and her family to flee, and after time spent on the run struggling to find food and escape the chaos, she eventually winds up in a makeshift hospital. The movie shifts from playful, happy, and joyful to fearful and sad, in under two minutes.

Viewers must be able to connect to the content. Content that is intensely relevant manifests as a feeling of warmth, respect and deep appreciation for an activity, idea or object. Think about a time you heard a song that you used to like but haven’t heard in a long while.

That feeling is affinity and it is now easy to create. Often marketers will try to activate certain memories, tapping into the parts of our lives that are commonly shared.

The ‘World’s Toughest Job’ video successfully uses memories to create affinity.

The video, which has over 2 million shares, features a prank whereby a fictional company interviews potential employees for the position of Operations Manager. When describing the requirements of the job, the interviewer tells the candidates that they must be willing to stand most of the day and be on call 24 hours. The candidates are perturbed, but remain interested and continue to present themselves in the best light. The interviewer then tells them that they should expect no scheduled breaks and be prepared to work extra hard on public holidays, including Christmas and Thanksgiving. The candidates start to look worried, but persevere. Finally, the interviewer tells the candidates that they must be willing to do the job for free. By this stage of the interview the candidates are shocked, telling the interviewer the job sounds cruel, inhumane, unfair, and potentially illegal.

The video concludes with the interviewer letting the interviewees in on the prank. He explains that there are already many billions of people throughout the world who are doing the exact same job —mothers. Most people have strong memories of their mother and these memories have special meaning, creating the feeling of affinity.

Frisson is a primitive feeling or excitement or thrill. It’s a physical response, like the hairs standing on the back of your neck, an increase in heart rate, the release of endorphins and adrenalin, and in some cases a feeling of chills running up the spine. Interestingly, it activates primitive parts of the brain usually associated with survival (eating, sleeping, and procreating).

In viral advertising, attempts to make something thrilling are common. Red Bull and Go Pro are two brands that frequently use thrills in extreme sports type advertisements. One of the more effective examples is the GoPro Backflip Over 72ft Canyon with close to 1 million shares.

The super-viral features point-of-view footage of freeride mountain biker Kelly McGarry, riding his bike across a narrow rocky ridge. At the end he pulls a harrowing backflip. The point-of-view perspective makes the viewer part of the truly thrilling ride, as if experiencing it for themselves.

The facial expression observed when someone watches something thrilling is the same facial expression observed when faced with a fight or ‘flight’ (run) survival encounter. The jaw drops (to enable more oxygen in to feed the muscles), the eyes open wider to enable faster reactions, and the face may even become pale as blood is transferred to the muscles in preparation for energy expenditure.

Viral movies don’t have to contain all four elements. Popular life-hack movies like how to peel 20 potatoes in two minutes aren’t high on emotion and don’t get our heart racing. But in video ads that have gone viral, affinity and self-intensification are almost always present. Each of the four elements, to varying degrees, motivates people to share the content with others. The more shareable a movie is, the more likely it will go viral. The secret to making something viral is to motivate people’s desire to share.

Going Viral – The 9 secrets of irresistible marketing by Dr Brent Coker is available now.

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Cracking the Code Behind Viral Videos: What Makes a Video Go Viral?

A shared goal among influencers, broadcasters, brands, and producers alike, “going viral” is essential if you want to reach and impact global audiences—but what makes a video viral, and how do you plan to make viral videos in the first place?

Storyful has been at the forefront of user-generated content for over a decade. As global media’s #1 trusted source for verified content that tells the stories behind the headlines, we’ve broken down our top tips and tricks for identifying viral UGC, knowing how to sell viral video content , and being able to utilize it for your benefit.

What is a Viral Video?

Viral videos are any online clips, short- or long-form, that achieve sudden and widespread popularity on global platforms. 

Three major characteristics of viral videos include:

• Widespread Sharing

Viral videos are rapid-fire shared across various online platforms, including social media, email, messaging apps, and more. 

• Rapid Engagement

Viral videos elicit strong and immediate engagement from viewers, often in the form of likes, comments, shares, and discussions. They tend to capture the attention and emotions of global audiences quickly and unforgettably—at least for the moment.

• Extensive Reach

Viral videos have the potential to reach a massive global audience. They transcend geographical and cultural boundaries, sparking discussion from people all over the world.

Generally, viral videos often tap into universal themes or emotions that resonate with people worldwide. Whether it’s humor, heartwarming stories, or moments of human connection, a strong viral video consistently holds the power to engage diverse audiences. Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok play a significant role in the creation and distribution of viral videos, which tend to have lasting cultural power. 

The Anatomy of Viral Videos

Creating a viral video is a dream for most content creators and marketers, but how is it actually accomplished? A.k.a., what makes a video viral?

• Emotional Appeal

Emotions play a significant role in making a video go viral. Content that elicits strong reactions tends to be shared because it connects with viewers on a more personal level.

• Relatability

Videos that address universal experiences or tap into shared cultural or societal references are also more likely to spread. People share content that mirrors their own experiences; it makes them feel like part of a larger community.

• Shareability

No matter the topic, viral videos should be difficult to scroll past. And the easier a clip is to share, the better its chances are of going viral. Using relevant hashtags and tapping into trending topics or challenges can also help, as they expose your video to a larger and more engaged audience.

The Science Behind Viral Videos

If you’re wondering about finding viral videos , you should first understand what makes a video viral. 

Viral videos have become an essential part of our online culture, spreading like wildfire across social media platforms and captivating the attention of millions. But when a video goes viral, it isn’t just coincidence; it’s a well-crafted combination of elements that make it inherently shareable.

One of the key factors in the success of viral videos is their ability to give people something to talk about. These videos often tap into current trends, cultural phenomena, or controversial topics that are on the tip of everyone’s tongue. They provide a common ground for people to engage in discussions, share their opinions, and connect with others who are equally captivated by the content. For instance, the “Ice Bucket Challenge” went viral not only because it was entertaining but also because it raised awareness about ALS, giving people a purpose to share and talk about the cause.

Emotions also play a central role in making videos shareable. People are more likely to share content that evokes strong emotional responses, whether it’s laughter, awe, anger, or empathy. Heartwarming stories of acts of kindness or adorable animal videos often go viral because they tug at our heartstrings, eliciting positive emotions that people are eager to share with their friends and followers.

Timing and triggers used in viral videos can also impact their success. Timely videos that coincide with major events or trends have a higher chance of going viral, as they become part of the ongoing conversation. Memorable catchphrases or challenges—like “Gangnam Style’s” horse dance or the “Mannequin Challenge”—serve as triggers that encourage imitation and participation. People love to mimic and be part of something bigger than themselves, which fuels the spread of these videos.

When does a video go viral?

Some viral videos are the result of calculated efforts by influencers and marketers who leverage algorithms and platforms for commercial purposes. This might include posting at optimal engagement times, marketing to specific demographics, or coming up with a powerful, irrefutable call-to-action.

These popular clips are usually a result of a mix of strategic planning and genuine relatability. While some go viral by chance, most are designed and promoted to maximize their reach. 

What Makes a Viral Video?

Creating viral content is no easy task. It requires strong storytelling skills, emotional triggers, and some form of inspiration or motivation. If a clip is authentic, humorous, relatable, or a triple-threat combo, it has a much greater chance of being widely shared. 

When Is a Video Considered Viral?

Determining when a video achieves “viral” status can be somewhat subjective and may vary depending on the platform, audience, and context. However, there are several key metrics that can help identify when a video has gone viral, like view counts, shares and engagement rates, media coverage, or cultural impact.

Over time, the criteria for viral videos have evolved to keep up with changes in technology, platforms, and audience behavior. This includes platform diversity, the rise of short-form content, the desire for audience participation, the influence of algorithms, and more. 

TikTok and YouTube: Viral Video Platforms 

Social media platforms are designed for sharing, so when one person posts a video, it leads to a chain reaction among their followers and their followers’ followers. The “Ice Bucket Challenge” is a classic example of a video challenge that went viral because of peer influence.

Videos may also go viral because they resonate with specific communities or subcultures, like gymtok , foodstagram , or history-focused YouTube channels . Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok use complex algorithms that prioritize content based on engagement metrics, which means the more you like, share, and comment, the more likely you are to see similar content in your future feed. 

Wondering how to make your videos go viral? Social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube play a significant role in the viral world. 

TikTok employs a “For You Page” (FYP) algorithm that customizes content for each user based on their preferences and history, and YouTube’s recommendation algorithm also suggests videos to users based on their viewing history and user behavior. The algorithm considers factors like watch time, click-through rate, engagement, and relevance.

How Do Videos Go Viral on TikTok?

If you want to achieve viral TikTok videos on your account, you’ll want to start out by familiarizing yourself with the platform’s algorithms and guidelines. Then, focus on the content itself.

Capture viewers’ attention quickly and maintain it throughout your video. You should also make sure to stay updated with platform trends, challenges, and hashtags, and use thumbnails that make users want to click.

How Do Videos Go Viral on YouTube?

Going viral on YouTube is pretty similar, as long as you focus on making high-quality content and understanding the platform’s unique algorithms. While TikTok’s culture heavily revolves around trends, challenges, and user interaction, YouTube has a broader array of content, and trends might not have the same instant and widespread impact.

Most viral YouTube videos offer value, entertainment, or information that really engages viewers. YouTube’s algorithm also values watch time—a.k.a., the total amount of time viewers spend watching a video. Longer videos that maintain high audience retention can have an advantage.

Examples of popular viral social media videos

As a leader in UGC verification, Storyful is home to some of the Internet’s most sought-after viral social media video clips —a.k.a., anything that was widely shared across various platforms in a short period of time. We’ve rounded up a few popular UGC moments you’re sure to recognize so you can get an idea of what viral videos tend to look like.

• Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Halloween decor

A major trend for this year’s Halloween season is decorations that resemble the famous singer Taylor Swift and her NFL boyfriend—at least, as far as social media is concerned. Although the seasonal footage was filmed in places like Indiana , Ohio , and Wisconsin , it dominated the global web due to the fact that T-Swift has continued to dominate billboard charts, as well as entertainment media headlines.

• Denys Karachevtsev

Ukrainian cello player Denys Karachevstev went viral in 2022 for performing haunting solos in the midst of backdrops damaged by Russian attacks. His content evoked powerful emotions—most notably collective hope, which it instilled during a time of darkness and uncertainty.

• TikTok Recipes

Few can resist a good viral recipe—especially the “ quarantini ” Nana taught us to make in April 2020. This type of content makes its rounds because of its irresistible call-to-action: it expects viewers to get involved and create too, and that in turn has proven a strong engagement tactic in enticing the viewer to return to your page/ account too.

Storyful’s Approach to Finding & Verifying Viral Videos

If you’re wondering how to make content go viral, you should first remember that seeing isn’t always believing. Fake viral videos are rampant online, and you should know how to identify them so you can bolster your own content against mis- and disinformation. 

Storyful helps teams directly combat this, working 24/7 to identify and verify the authenticity of global clips that are making viral rounds. Our work has supported worldwide coverage of viral videos in the news , global weather , and much more. 

When it comes to knowing how to find viral videos, how to make sense of them, and how to avoid falling for fake viral videos , ours is a team you want in your corner. 

Storyful’s Top Tips to Make Your Videos Go Viral

Want to know how to make your videos go viral? Here are our top three tips for success.

• Plan your content wisely

You’re going to be posting about your chosen topic a lot; make sure it’s something you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. You might be met with audience feedback, so you’ll want to be as prepared as possible to engage if necessary. 

• Know your audience

It’s essential to figure out who you are speaking to when you post, and cater your content to appeal to them. This also ups the chances of your audience returning to your page for trusted and valued content, which is your ultimate goal. 

• Leverage trends

Check out popular hashtags and think about what you can add to the conversation. This helps you extend your reach, and increases your likelihood of connecting with your target audience. 

The Future of Viral Video Content and Storyful’s Role

In order to go viral and achieve global reach, you have to remember the science behind widely-shared content. Timing and context make all of the difference when it comes to reaching your target audience, and you can always rely on Storyful to help you achieve all of your video-related goals.  Storyful is a trusted source for viral videos that are accurate and safe to share. To learn more about our role in UGC verification and how our team can support yours in daily coverage of major events, get in touch with our team today .

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The best video essays of 2021

Introspection and the act of watching emerged as recurring themes across a year in which video makers responded to the realities of a continuing pandemic. Our poll of 30 video essayists, academics, critics and filmmakers highlights 120 recommendations.

18 January 2022

By  Ariel Avissar , Cydnii Wilde Harris , Grace Lee

After ‘Year of the Virus 2: 2 Metres 2 Vaccines’, it’s no surprise that we’re presenting yet another poll inevitably marked by isolation and fatigue.

There have been numerous developments and projects of note, continuing the previous year’ s theme of collaboration. There’s been the forming of Video Essay: Futures of Audiovisual Research and Teaching , an academic research project led by Johannes Binotto at Lucerne University in collaboration with the University of Zurich, which has produced some fascinating work this year; the One Villainous Scene collaboration, for which Nando v Movies gathered 230 essayists on YouTube to explore their favourite villains; the TV Dictionary collection, for which 20 essayists followed Ariel Avissar’s open invitation to dabble in videographic ruminations on television series; and two more volumes of the Essay Library Anthology, ‘micro-essay compilations’ by members of the Essay Library Discord community, touching on the very relevant themes of ‘time’  and ‘death’ .

This year also saw the return of several big names, such as Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou (the team behind Every Frame a Painting ) in their contributions to Netflix’s Voir series, and Mike Rugnetta (former host of Idea Channel ), who began uploading essays to a personal account .

But even amid these excellent projects, not only have video makers continued to struggle within the realities of a continuing pandemic, even poll voters have been down from previous years, suggesting that many of us have struggled with not only finding the time to make but also finding the time to watch video essays this year.

That being said, many of the videos that have been made and watched seem to have turned their attention towards the very act of watching, a trend that’s perhaps unsurprising given the amount of time we’ve all been afforded with ourselves this year. Left to our own devices, it’s only a matter of time before we begin to look inward, and thus introspection marks a clear theme in this year’s most talked-about videos. This result may be even more inevitable than any undercurrent of fatigue or isolation, as what would a group of video essay enthusiasts love more than essays about essays and videos about videos.

There’s no shame in a little indulgence this year.

Trends and numbers

Of the 30 contributors to the poll this year (down from 42 last year), 20 are male, 9 are female and 1 is non-binary. Two thirds of them are based in Europe, one third in the USA . They are video essayists, academics, critics and filmmakers. They submitted a total of 178 votes, for 122 unique entries that span online video essays, essay films, documentaries, installations, television series and Twitter threads. These works were made – or published – this past year, by both established essayists and newcomers to the field; they range from 20 seconds to 6 hours in length, with the average length above 22 minutes (5 minutes longer than last year’s average).

Practices of Viewing , “a video essay series on new media and their many old histories” by Johannes Binotto, was the top-mentioned item, receiving a total of 13 mentions (of either the series as a whole or several individual entries). Also of note were: the collaborative TV Dictionary collection, which received 7 mentions (of either the project as a whole or of various individual entries); Screening Room: On Digital Film Festivals by Jessica McGoff (6 mentions); and What Isn’t a Video Essay? by Grace Lee (5 mentions). As previously stated, most of these are devoted to an exploration of the subject of video essays or videographic criticism and of various practices of consuming, engaging with and reacting to media images. This trend also extends to Max Tohline’s A Supercut of Supercuts (4 mentions), Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin’s Videography 1978 (4 mentions), and several other entries featured on the poll.

Of the essayists whose work is featured, 38% are female (up from 33% last year, and 24% the year prior) and 50% are male (down from 53% last year, and 68% the year prior), with the remaining 12% made by mixed-gender teams or non-binary essayists.

The videos are overwhelmingly presented in English (95%) and are predominantly from the US (36%) and the UK (22%), followed by 23 other countries (mostly in Europe), marking a gradual rise in the number of countries featured in the poll. The dominant focus in terms of medium, though somewhat less so than in previous years, remains film (63% of videos), with television a more significant – though still distant – second (13% — up from 5% last year). 23 of the videos (or 19%) were published in various online academic journals, primarily [in]Transition (10 entries) and Tecmerin (5 entries).

Besides voting for their favourite video essays of the year, contributors were also given the option to suggest video essayists to be featured on our new ‘Emerging voices’ section, which seeks to spotlight new makers of note, whose work this year was significant or impactful, and who are well worth keeping an eye on in the following years.

Emerging voices

This year has been one not just of self reflection, but of discovery. In light of all the discoveries we’ve been making, we wanted to use this year’s poll to spotlight new voices who have emerged this year. We asked our peers to submit individual essayists that they believed had truly struck out anew this year, be that through debuting their first works, or by significantly expanding their own profiles.

One journey many of us can relate to is that of finding our voice throughout our academic progression. Many of our emerging voices are students whose works originally developed as academic assignments. Emily Su Bin Ko, from the University of Massachusetts, was one such creator. For her latest piece, the pointed videographic exploration Citizen Kane: Transcending Bazin’s Dichotomy , she was singled out by both Barbara Zecchi and Adrian Martin as having demonstrated her analytical talent, an engaging style and a thought-provoking voice.

Another was Niki Radman from the University of Glasgow, who made her debut this year with the video essay eye/contact , and was noted by Ian Garwood. The piece explores the work of Barry Jenkins through a critical supercut, and demonstrates an exciting mastery of the form and an ability to poetically communicate her ideas.

Matthew Smolenski from the University of Warwick was suggested by Katie Bird as another newcomer of note for their video essay Here, There and Everywhere: Movement in the Beatles’s Fiction Filmography , which deftly addresses movement and sound on screen through the context of the Beatles’ filmography.

Myrna Moretti from Northwestern University was also praised by Katie Bird. Her work, Friends from TV on the Internet , made for the Desktop Documentary Seminar at SCMS 2021, manages to be both lighthearted and poignant as it explores fandom, nostalgia, and climate anxiety.

Not all submissions received were discovered through traditionally academic spaces. Some were video essayists who have been accruing greater audiences on YouTube. Maia, known as Broey Deschanel , was put forth by Dan Schindel for her well-researched and thoughtful analysis of pop culture subjects. Her works on Sofia Coppola and Love Island were mentioned specifically, and while she has been working steadily since 2018, her work of this past year has been exceptional.

Yhara Zayd was also recognised by Dan Schindel for the uniqueness of her topics and the finesse of her analyses. Since 2019, she’s been creating thoughtful and original critiques on everything from Skins US to Reefer Madness (1936), and an acknowledgement of her work is well-deserved.

Corinth Boone is a cartoonist, animator, and now video essayist, with the debut of her piece, So I Decided to Watch All the Lupin III Movies . She was specifically hailed by Shannon Strucci for her wit, editing skills, and the well-researched manner of the work.

Finally, Sophie from Mars was suggested by Grace Lee. While she has been successfully analysing media and culture for many years now, Sophie was specifically heralded for the achievements of their work of the last year, the skilful honing of their visual style, and an affecting personal point of view.

Growth is a term that is wholly dependent on context. Thus, the creators selected for this emerging voices section represent the diversity of the videographic community itself, and we’re pleased to share each of their stories.

All the votes

Film theorist, curator and occasional video essayist, Charles University in Prague and Národní filmový archiv

Screening Room: On Digital Film Festivals by Jessica McGoff

Throughout the pandemic, I have become fascinated with the idea of extending the screen-mediated experience of the world beyond the actual computer or smartphone interface. Chloé Galibert-Laîné already explored this notion in 2020’s Forensickness ; this year, Jessica McGoff utilised the ‘desktop cinema without the desktop’ approach to reflect on attending digital film exhibitions within the spatial monoculture of her apartment. A paper-made quasi-cinematic dispositif crushed by an intervention of a fluffy cat is only one of the many playful experiments McGoff stages to invent new ways in which we can exploit the limitations of the pandemic against the grain.

The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked by Liz Greene

One of the great potentialities of videographic criticism is giving insight into the research process in all of its stages and facets. Yet, rarely do videographic essays delve into such meticulous depth as Greene’s investigation of her ongoing encounters with The Elephant Man’s soundtrack. One minor detail – a strangely cleaned-up line of dialogue – serves as a MacGuffin that sparks a journey across often obscure or intimate research artefacts and software interfaces. The essay highlights the alignment between research and post-production as material processes whose gaps, fissures, and excesses tell their own stories.

The Thinking Machine #48: Videography 1978 by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Examination of continuities and discontinuities between analogue and digital images is another area where videographic criticism thrives. Besides the works of Johannes Binotto, whom I mentioned in previous polls and who continues this line of work in the Practices of Viewing series, a moving autobiographical essay on films as material artefacts was created by López and Martin. Videography 1978 offers a fresh look on the ‘unattainable object’ issue, highlighting, for example, the non-identity of analogue and digital frames. The essay testifies that despite the (often justified) criticism, cinephilia as a mode of watching and analysing films remains relevant.

Mediated Auscultation by Emilija Talijan

Out of this year’s essays published in [in]Transition, Talijan’s exploration of the relationship between cinema and the stethoscope resonated most closely with me. I generally appreciate when videographic works reach toward a broader context of audiovisual culture, particularly of its very origins, and Mediated Auscultation finds the proper equilibrium between structured argumentation and formal experimentation. The stethoscope’s technological possibilities deconstruct the audiovisual unity of film back into a multiplicity of deranged, often impenetrable images and sounds, with a nerve-racking heartbeat rhythm always hovering around.

Train Again by Peter Tscherkassky

Once again, my list would not be complete without at least one experimental found footage film. Tscherkassky’s treatise on the ever-present bond between trains and cinema overflows with allusions to early cinema and the avant-garde, yet achieves to marry the old with the always already new. The Austrian artist’s vintage analogue deformations join forces with digital pixelation to show the train-image for what it is – a constantly trembling and crumbling entity on the verge of destruction and rebirth.

Ariel Avissar

Video essayist and media scholar at Tel Aviv University

Viewing the world outside from the comfort/prison of her room, McGoff offers a perceptive meditation on contemporary ways of seeing that is as irreverent as it is reverent. Quintessential viewing for the pandemic era. Make this a double feature with McGoff’s My Mulholland from last year, which likewise investigates the superimposition of online and offline experience.

I am Sitting in a Room, Listening to Mank by Cormac Donnelly

Sitting in a different room, Donnelly offers a sonic counterpoint to McGoff’s, offering a fascinating examination of the sonic soundscapes that envelop us all as we sit, in our own rooms, watching and listening (though perhaps not listening as attentively as we ought to). Make this a double feature with Donnelly’s Sonic Chronicle Post Sound from last year, which investigates (diegetic) sonic soundscapes.

Practices of Viewing by Johannes Binotto

Like McGoff and Donnelly, Binotto’s fascination is with the way we interact with images and sounds, and this phenomenal series, consisting of five entries to date, is a must-watch for anyone interested in the way technology mediates images and sounds, and the possibilities it opens up for interfering with and complicating its own mediation. My personal favourite is the one on screenshots , but it’s dealer’s choice, really. Make that last one a double feature with Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin’s Videography 1978 , Binotto’s explicit source of inspiration, which also explores technologies of viewing – and their pre-digital antecedents.

Irani Bag by Maryam Tafakory

Made as part of the Monographs  series of essays on Asian cinema commissioned by the Asian Film Archive last year, which is finally available online now, Tafakory’s soulful and mesmerising video employs excerpts from 24 Iranian films to interrogate the ways in which a handbag can serve as a surrogate for bodily contact, enabling the performers to “touch without touching”. Make this a double feature with Tafakory’s longer essay film follow-up, the upcoming Nazarbazi ; it is a meditation on the subject (and absence) of touch in Iranian cinema that is powerful, reflective and, yes, touching.

A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek

Misek offers a thoughtful and ever-timely exploration of the ways in which commercial archives mediate – and commodify – our access to the past, and offers a mode of resistance in the form of a direct intervention. Be on the lookout for it when it comes out sometime next year; in the meantime, whet your appetite with this shorter, early iteration of the project titled Captured Images , which can serve as a sort of trailer for the longer film – and also stands on its own.

Mad Men ’s ‘Babylon’  by Ariane Hudelet

Hudelet patiently and diligently traces multiple intertextual threads offered by a song featured on an early episode of Mad Men, presenting the kind of thorough, insightful and enjoyable analysis that I, for one, would love to see dedicated to more works of television in videographic form. On that note, make this a double feature with Occitane Lacurie’s Prendre conscience / perdre connaissance , a fascinating desktop examination of intertextual relations between Westworld and Last Year at Marienbad.

A Supercut of Supercuts: Aesthetics, Histories, Databases by Max Tohline

And finally, Tohline’s epic, feature-length reflection on the supercut is a comprehensively impressive (or impressively comprehensive?) investigation of one of the digital age’s most viral videographic genres. Over its 130 minutes, Tohline examines the supercut’s aesthetics, structures and effects; its complex and multiple contexts and histories; and its relation to technology and ideology, as a simulation of database logic. The analysis is coherent and persuasive, and the diverse perspectives are highly informative and enriching. No need for a double feature on this one (though I dare you not to look up any of the numerous supercuts sampled in the video).

Johannes Binotto

Lecturer in media and cultural studies, video bricolageur, leading videoessayresearch.org

I feel absolutely unable to have an overview of what work has been done in the field throughout this year. Instead the video essays on my list are all works that I came across not because I was searching for them but purely by accident, strangely in-between, and when I least expected them. Each of them hit me sideways so much that I still don’t want to recover from what they did to me.

How to Perform Teaching During a Pandemic Spring Session, 2020: GENDER STUDIES , Rain & Cats Cut by Dayna McLeod

I was watching Dayna McLeod’s haunting take on Lynch’s Wild at Heart when I came across this other piece that perhaps many would not even consider a video essay. McLeod performs the performance of someone who has to perform gender studies (and its interest in performance) under the circumstances of COVID remote teaching and being constantly interrupted. This is really wild, unpredictable, intellectual, clever, very funny, but – and this gets me the most — so extremely touching in its acknowledging one’s own awkwardness and vulnerability. We always joke about the things that hurt us most.

3 x Shapes of Home by Elisabeth Brun

What would seem as a purely conceptual and abstract research on how to investigate landscapes through different film practices turns out to be like a poem by Whitman, encompassing the most intimate and the most universal. A film in which the sudden freeze of an image and the humming of the filmmaker cuts me so much I start to cry. A crab gently poking at the camera is a sight I will keep dreaming of.

RETOURNE - TOI (Reading Ovid’s ‘Orpheus & Eurydice’ in Portrait of a Lady on Fire) by Catherine Grant

I thought I already knew this video but when seeing it during a workshop I was shocked by how much it affected me. It left me overwhelmed yet at the same time made me want to work myself in exactly this state of overload. I guess I heard the Althusserian interpellation in the title. And it is fitting that I had to return to this video to find out its unique power since it is about the hypnosis of repetition, both on narrative and formal level.

The Conversation is the Confessional by Max Tohline

I probably should have picked Max’s incredible jumbo jet of a video essay on the supercut, but this one means a lot to me because it is among many things also a personal present. Seeing a collection of video essays students of mine made on The Conversation, Max not only fell in love with them but wanted to join our group by contributing his own thoughtful, sensitive, and complex analysis of the religious under- under overtones in this film. Like a confession of its own. What a gift!

The Archival In-Between by Evelyn Kreutzer and Noga Stiassny

I don’t know how to talk about this one because it attempts what must remain impossible, approaching the unapproachable. It uses archival material that I am not sure anyone should ever use again but of which I am also convinced that it must be seen. The video’s impossibility seems to me the impossibility of the archive per se Foucault wrote about. So how then even to begin to make this video? It gives no answer but begins and remains beginning. Like the crackling noise on the soundtrack: a needle in the empty grooves of a record before the music starts.

Vertigo - Making Space. A 3D Video Essay by David Bucheli

Who hasn’t fantasised of seeing Vertigo in 3-D? David’s video fulfils the dream but does so by rendering it a disturbing nightmare. There are moments when the 3-D-effect works as one would think it is supposed to, giving us Scotty and Madeleine as seemingly graspable bodies but even more fascinating are those moments when the images we see on left and right eye no longer align but completely diverge, fall apart, splitting your consciousnesses in half. The longer I watch the more I fear this video will damage my brain irrevocably.

TV Dictionary —  On Becoming a God in Central Florida by Clair Richards

This was a triple surprise. A video on a series I had never heard of before by an essayist I hadn’t known before focusing on a term I never cared about before. Watching admiring the scene it picks and how it dances together with the text I ask myself: What is the strength of a video essay? For me it’s not tech-savviness nor the amount of material or concepts it works with. I think it’s rather the willingness to make yourself be seen doing something you haven’t yet nor ever will have mastered. It’s not a confidence thing.

Assistant professor, communication, University of Texas at El Paso

The Elephant Man ’s Sound, Tracked by Liz Greene

Greene’s video leads the viewer through a unique historical investigation of initial discovery, possibility, and lingering questions in a way that allows the viewer to feel how answers to a production’s history are many, and regularly conflicting. Unlike most historical presentations that simply point at the ‘evidence’, Greene allows us to literally ‘search’ and ‘flip the pages’ alongside. Greene focuses on equivocation, back tracking, and talking around, and what is largely left unsaid in many of the interviews. This project cuts around auteurism, without being a critique and articulates Splet amongst a larger set of industrial and and national forces.

Long Take, Pop Song by Ian Garwood

Nothing brought me more joy this year than this little pop diddy composed by Garwood and sung by Anna Miles ear-worming its way into my daily thoughts. Beyond the catchiness of the tune that directs this video on the important of pop music in a scene from Before Sunrise, Garwood brings in a pop aesthetic to the video with the use of animated and freeze frames, turning the conceit of the Before Trilogy into a comic book that takes place within the span of a pop song. It is a delight and a treat to see criticism have fun.

From now on, I won’t be able to watch Jeanne Dielman without also seeing McGoff’s own sink. This moment where a small scene of washing dishes floats about McGoff’s sink (the lines of the tiles almost matching) last only 6 seconds, but the gesture speaks to the intimacy and vulnerability of McGoff’s style. Her now signature approach to desktop, combined anew with the casual recordings of daily life (the record, the cat, the windows, the screens, the screens, the screens) offers a critical and personal glimpse into something that felt/feels all too familiar over the past years.

The TV Dictionary project by Ariel Avissar and various

Ariel Avissar’s TV Dictionary project was enormously generative for my own thinking about what diverse and creative experiments could be produced out of a simple prompt. I was inspired to create my own lists of terms and shows I would apply them to, and though I never made one, this speculative edit was a thrill. There’s too many videos to celebrate. But Libertad Gills and Juan Llamas Rodriguez tapped into the layering of their terms ‘ experience ‘ and ‘ comfort ’: how their shows feel to viewers and what is felt between characters in a moment or shared series of moments.

Beyond inspirational, and field changing, nothing made me want to throw in the towel on making more than seeing Binotto’s playful, critical, and incisive video series Practices of Viewing. Each one challenged our ways of ‘seeing’ and making, each one carefully bringing in new techniques to test the boundaries and possibilities of videographic form. But whatever trepidation I felt, was always overshadowed by the openness and curiosity that grounded each of Binotto’s experiments and his welcomeness as a videographic maker joyfully throwing out these gambits for the rest of us to up our games. But, MASK did me in.

Mourning with Minari by Kevin B. Lee

I’ll need to sit and rewatch Lee’s video essay many more times before I’ll have words good enough to match his evocative “gathering of images” of grieving through making, of holding space, and of breathing this memorial into being. By walking us through Minari, Lee leaves room for the questions trauma and white supremacist violence has left in its wake. By showing what has been made invisible, Lee similarly works through what it means to “manage the politics of presence” in the film and in US visual culture writ large, not to see these images as ‘empty’ but as open

De la femme by Caterina Cucinotta and Jesús Ramé López.

Stitching and Cutting, Stitching and Cutting, Stitching and Cutting! The repetition and overlap of the manual labor of production (seamstresses and editors) woven together with the metaphorical and literal fabrics of the film: its costumes and film strips. A gorgeous meditation on the gendered craft work of Hollywood production using both scraps of fabric and trims of film: materials on display and also what is not meant to be seen. The multi-screen side-by-side creates simple unexpected patterns and delightful sonic parallels to the sewing machine and the editor’s splicing. With these workers we get close in, slow down, and reconfigure.

Steven E. de Souza

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

Listening to Toy Story by Andrew Saladino (The Royal Ocean Film Society)

The almost purest representation of a literal ‘moving picture’, animation’s inevitable accommodation of sound would seem an afterthought hardly worth a thought, its early scores dismissed even by its applicants as ‘mickey mousing’. A century on, any imagined deficiencies of bandwidth inherent in the medium compared to live action demands sound loom even larger in its duty to inform and enhance a narrative.

Here’s Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult to Understand (And Three Ways to Fix It) by Ben Pearson (Slashfilm)

After nodding my head sagely at Andrew Saladino’s essay how diligently animation endeavors to add depth, clarity and content to its simulacrum of reality, I’m now shaking it in dismay at Pearson’s analysis of live action’s race in the opposite direction, coupled with minor relief that it’s not just me, I don’t actually need a hearing aid.

The Coolest Stunt You’ve Never Heard Of by Adam Tinius (Entertain The Elk)

It’s the rare filmmaker who didn’t start down the storytelling path in childhood, in backyards populated by cops n’ robbers, cowboys, pirates, and — most of all — imagination. Sometimes less is more, and we were right all along: simply pretending may be the best trick of all.

Golden Ratio in Cinema by Walter Murch

Mind Blown.

The Aesthetics of Evil by Lewis Michael Bond and Luiza Liz Bond (The Cinema Cartography)

Where would we be without our villains? (I know where I’d be, still teaching ESL at John F. Kennedy Junior High School in Willingboro, New Jersey — Go, Gryphons!) But in a world of increasingly grey tones, with black and white cowboy hats and their corresponding matching horses long dispatched to Boot Hill, how do we signal Villainy before it even opens its mouth? Here, Luiza Liz Bond and Lewis Michael Bond crack the color code; let the Pantone chips fall where they may.

Queen’s Gambit : What Makes a Story Cinematic? by Adam Tinius (Entertain The Elk)

People sitting silently in chairs glaring daggers at each other over seven hours of film will be edge of the seat suspense, said no one ever.

Scott Frank: Hold my beer vodka.

Voir, episode 6: Profane and Profound by Walter Chaw (on Netflix )

Just in time for its 40th anniversary, Walter Chaw spares no superlatives in his pedestaling of 1982’s 48 HRS . as a watershed work of not only genre, but as a seminal, crucial and long overdue vivisection of contemporary society. In an essay flaying metatextual layers aside, he shows us the racism that’s the apex tentpole of the American power structure, and unpacks this archetypical ‘buddy comedy’ as a poisoned chalice of popcorn, its bitter taste sweetened by heaping doses of comedy.

Who am I to disagree?

Will DiGravio

Host, The Video Essay Podcast ; creator, ‘ Notes on Videographic Criticism ’

These seven videos/projects/films, for me, epitomise the greatness of this form: they provide a new way of seeing and engaging with familiar images, sounds, and mediums. Each taught me how to be a better watcher, listener, and reader. They inspired me, and I look forward to returning to them time and time again in the years to come.

A Fish with the Movie Camera: Lucrecia Martel’s Pescados as Metacinema by Barbara Zecchi

All Light, Everywhere by Theo Anthony

What is Neo-Snyderism? by Ariel Avissar

The Rise of Film TikTok by kikikrazed aka Queline Meadows

Citizen Kane : Transcending Bazin’s Dichotomy by Emily Su Bin Ko

Maggie Mae Fish

Actor, writer, film video essayist

The Day Rue ‘Became’ Black by Yhara Zayd

I love all of Yhara’s work, but this video in particular touches on a moment I remember in real-time — the backlash against a canonically young Black girl in the Hunger Games books, who when brought to life in the films illuminated the stunted imagination and racism in YA  audiences.

Bo Burnham’s Inside and ‘White Liberal Performative Art’  by F.D.  Signifier

F.D. Signifier is one of the most cuttingly insightful media critiques, and his work on Bo Burnham’s quarantine ‘masterpiece’ hits into why this type of art can ring hollow or shallow for as many people as it resonates with.

Rac(ism) & Horror by Khadija Mbowe

Khadija is funny, snarky, our ‘Millennial Auntie’ and in this video becomes a film professor to give an overview of the intersection of Blackness and the horror genre. It would be at home in any university course on the subject, but Khadija goes full out swapping costumes and sets to give as much entertainment as insightful analysis of a broad and deeply important topic.

Thomas Flight

Video essayist and filmmaker

What Isn’t a Video Essay? by Grace Lee (What’s So Great About That?)

The video essay is a notoriously hard genre to define. Grace Lee expertly uses the form to examine itself and avoids easy or cliché answers, appealing instead to our subjective intuition.

What Distinguishes the Great Existential Films? by Tom van der Linden (Like Stories of Old)

2021 came as a year of personal video essays. Blending a reading of real-world spaces and film, Tom explores his love of existential cinema through his love of empty churches.

The Game That Won’t Let You See All of It by Jacob Geller

Geller looks at how a video game, several films, and a TV show use their structure to examine the passage of time.

Midsommar ’s Audiovisual Tricks by Spikima Movies

Sometimes video essays serve a very practical purpose. Ari Aster’s Midsommar got under my skin, and I wanted to know why. But I was too unsettled to dive deeply enough into Midsommar’s world to figure out why for myself. Fortunately, Spikima does the dirty work of thoroughly answering that question in this essay. Does knowing a film’s tricks make it less horrifying?

How Movies Helped Me Process My Mother’s Death by Adam Tinius (Entertain The Elk)

Adam Tinius, from Entertain The Elk, offers a deeply personal and emotional examination of how losing his mother to cancer compared to representations of death and grief in film.

EraserNomad by Liz Greene

Greene discovers an implausible but compelling visual link between Nomadland and Eraserhead. There’s a strange echo in how Jack Nance and Francis McDormand navigate these spaces. Perhaps their characters are haunted by a similar ghost.

Ian Garwood

Senior lecturer in film and television studies, University of Glasgow

Not that anyone will be checking back, but my list this year features only names who I have not picked for previous polls.

Marion Cotillard Doesn’t Exist (And This Is the Proof) by Elena G. Vilela

Not that anyone will be checking back, but my list this year features only names who I have not picked for previous polls. I love the ‘Truman Show’ conceit of this video, which is superbly realised through dead-pan narration and an incredibly astute selection of clips.

This is an exhaustive, yet consistently enlightening and accessible, treatise on the supercut. Three years in the making, Max Tohline’s feature-length essay identifies a dizzying array of precursors to the internet-era supercut, as well as pinpointing its aesthetic and ideological effects.

This is a fascinating essay that makes an imaginative and persuasive association between the technology of cinema and the stethoscope. Its philosophical analysis of cinematic listening is pursued through a wonderful selection of clips.

Practices of Viewing: Muted by Johannes Binotto

On the one hand, Johannes Binotto’s Practice of Viewing could be seen as something of a video essayist’s manual, each entry itemising a technique associated with video essay-making processes. However, there is nothing textbook about the way these techniques are discussed: the address is passionate and wide-ranging, offering enlightenment on why these processes fascinate, rather than a ‘how to’ instruction. I’ve chosen this particular entry as it aligns with my interest in sound. It also provides an ending that resonates uncannily with the preoccupations of Mediated Auscultation – so watch them as a double bill.

[Safe] and The Neon Demon in Dialogue by Oswald Iten

Like Binotto’s work, Oswald Iten’s three-part experimental mash-up of [Safe] and The Neon Demon is accessible through videoessayresearch.org , a research website that should be bookmarked by anyone interested in the development of videographic criticism. Each of the videos combines the films according to a different founding principle, providing captivating evidence for Jason Mittell’s claim that formal parameters lead to content discoveries.

TV Dictionary —  Bron/Broen ( II ) by Barbara Zecchi

Ariel Avissar’s curation of the TV Dictionary  series was a highlight of the year, one in which I was happy to indulge as both creator and viewer. I’m really interested in the range of approaches adopted to address the same brief: to encapsulate a TV series in one word. Barbara Zecchi chooses a distinctive path by allowing a scene to play out at length first, before introducing her chosen word, and then letting the scene resume, now understood in the light of that word. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing the pivotal word (but it made me laugh)!

Picturing the Collective: Seven Days in May by Libertad Gills

One technique showcased in the TV Dictionary series was to let a scene play out with minimal, yet still integral, textual commentary. Libertad Gills, who added an entry on Derry Girls to the collection, adopts a similarly minimalist approach to her use of captions in this video, which runs through a sequence from Affonso Uchoa’s Seven Days in May. The result is an explanatory scene analysis that displays the lightest of touches.

Tomas Genevičius

Art critic, kritikosatlasas.com

Josephine Massarella: One Woman Walking by Stephen Broomer

The Moment of Recognition: Phantom Lady and Sorry, Wrong Number by Patrick Keating

Silence in The Passionate Friends by Oswald Iten

The Thinking Machine #50: Nicholas Ray — Notes on Style by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Practices of Viewing: F. FWD by Johannes Binotto

Catherine Grant

Screen media-maker and publisher of scholarly video essays, and a former professor of screen studies (Website: https://catherinegrant.org )

Her first video essay and a superbly engaging work on Gen Z’s latest hub for film appreciation by the video essay’s MVP in 2021, which Queline followed up with another excellent study, The Two Worlds of Wolfwalkers . If these two huge achievements weren’t enough, Queline was also instrumental in the wonderful Essay Library Collaboration Project. Join the Essay Library Discord and check it out. And listen to Will DiGravio’s great conversation with her at the Video Essay Podcast ..

We were very lucky, at [in]Transition, the peer-reviewed video-essay journal I co-edit, to be able to publish some marvellous entries by new makers in this emergent scholarly field. Of the three I am highlighting here, one of the strongest in scholarly terms was this work that explored how one form of media (the stethoscope) might reveal something about another (cinema), and in so doing revisited some essential questions of cinema’s medium specificity in a supremely original way.

TERROR NULLIUS Unmixed by Caitlin Lynch

Given the ubiquity of global remix culture, Caitlin Lynch’s highly original proposal for a videographic research methodology designed to tackle this culture deserves a lifetime achievement award! What an amazingly useful concept ‘unmixing’ is, especially when it comes to deeply political work, like that by Australian collective Soda_Jerk. I can only agree with peer-reviewer Jaimie Baron who wrote that TERROR NULLIUS Unmixed shows that ‘the activities of remixing and unmixing, alternating in a potentially never-ending cycle, may constitute a productive strategy for grappling with our mediated traces of history, to which a definitive and closed meaning can never be attached.’

Stories of Haunted Houses: Female Subjects and Domestic Spaces in Contemporary Gothic Films and TV Series by Chiara Grizzaffi and Giulia Scomazzon

My personal favourite video essay on television and film, published in 2021, was co-authored by a new maker (Giulia Scomazzon) and by someone who is better known so far for her brilliant writing on video essays, my [in]Transition co-editor Chiara Grizzaffi (author of the great book I film attraverso i film. Dal «testo introvabile» ai «video essay»). Their collaboration produced a substantial and satisfying work, with affect like no other — a perfect combination of poetic, personal and scholarly approaches to contemporary female gothic films and tv series.

Outside the Lines by Dayna McLeod

One of the most exciting developments of 2021 was the turn to video essays made by established found footage and experimental film artists. Dayna McLeod is an internationally known Montreal based performance artist and video artist whose work often touches on topics of feminism, queer identity, and sexuality. In her first ever online video essays — on Lynch’s Wild at Heart — she shakes up the videographic universe with a wonderful fusion of personal-essay-filmmaking in a film critical vein. I really love what Dayna achieves in the incredibly concise and powerful frame of Outside the Lines.

Stephen Broomer is an internationally renowned experimental filmmaker, film preservationist, and scholar of Canadian cinema. His new turn to video essays in 2021 was both brilliant and prolific, resulting in two new series of high quality work: Art & Trash , which premiered in February 2021 with a twelve-episode first series of video essays on underground, avant-garde, psychotronic and outsider media, which his essay on Josephine Massarella inaugurated; and Detours, an equally rich new videographic series on the bruised soul of film noir . 2021 was an incredibly productive year from a remarkable filmmaker. I can’t wait for more.

TV Dictionary —  Derry Girls by Libertad Gills

My final vote in the poll (as I will retire after a long but happy stint as participant in it this year) goes to yet another young filmmaker, long interested in found footage, who is now making online video essays. Libertad Gills made my very favourite video essay, to date, in Ariel Avissar’s wonderful collaborative project TV Dictionary . Her work gets at the heart of what’s so brilliant about Derry Girls, which is no mean feat in three and half minutes, and reminds us, along the way, what a work of genius the series is.

Chiara Grizzaffi

Postdoctoral Fellow at IULM University. Co-editor of [in]Transition

Montegelato by Davide Rapp (watch trailer )

Screen Glare by Enrico Camporesi, Stefano Miraglia

Rites of THE PASSAGE by Catherine Grant & Deborah Martin

The Thinking Machine #49: The Burning House by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

A Woman’s Place: Home in Cinema by Louise Radinger Field

Practices of Viewing: Screenshots by Johannes Binotto

How Good Filmmaking Brings a Script to Life by Michael Tucker (Lessons From the Screenplay)

Cydnii Wilde Harris

Film scholar and video essayist

I’ve always loved a good homework assignment, and I’ve particularly enjoyed seeing everyone’s responses to Ariel’s prompt. Every one I’ve seen has been a standout. I particularly really enjoyed those that used the video essay medium to play with form and tone, and really capture the essence of their chosen tv shows. But one that stuck with me in particular was Ariel’s own on Seinfeld : A real punch of text, editing, laugh tracks, and humor for the tv show about nothing. A’s all around.

Johannes’s Practices series has been such a marvel throughout the year. With every new entry, I’m confronted with his genius, and it’s been really inspiring to bear witness. Muted in particular really resonated with me. The whole series feels like an interrogation of film history, media present, while somehow remaining deeply meditative and personal. Johannes’s work, without fail, always leaves me feeling invigorated, about what I’ve just seen, and what I could possibly do.

Rio Bravo Diary by Will DiGravio

Watching the Rio Bravo Diary unfold all year has been such a treat. I didn’t grow up with any real affinity for the western, so to read Will’s essays about what this film in particular meant to him growing up and coming of age really helped me reappraise this specific film. His transparency has been really revelatory to see, and I really appreciate how he’s invited us all to get to know him a little better through this year-long project. Further, the consistency and discipline of dealing with a single text for a full 365 is such an interesting experiment in the first place.

It is so, so cool to see someone top themselves so consistently. The things Jessica accomplishes here, the introspection, the way she was able to tackle the issue of accessibility while also broadening the topic, the interplay between film, the internet, and the various windows surrounding us all from literal glass panes to phone, tablet, tv, and theater screens. I don’t think I’ve ever wished a video essay would keep going while also being so impressed by how perfectly it ends. It’s just so dynamic in every sense of the word, and incredibly well done.

let’s talk about sexless media | feminism, christianity, violence, etc by wit and folly

This is a video essay that somehow managed to synthesise an online conversation with such care and context that I can’t help but share it with friends. What they accomplish is one of my favourite forms of video essays on YouTube. It’s informative, well researched, yet personable and accessible. Their argument flows really nicely, and the citations do a lot to back up the personal statements made. It also really nicely laid out something that maybe I had felt about a recent media trend, but hadn’t yet been able to articulate myself. If I had to answer the question of sex scenes in films, I would simply point to this video essay as my answer.

Gab the Goat (ft. Yhara Zayd): A Celebration of Gabrielle Union & An F-U to Colorism and Tokenism by Melina Pendulum

I’m so happy I waited to submit, because these are two of my favourite video essayists discussing one of my favourite actresses (I’m also happy because it means I get to nominate them both under a single entry). I think sometimes we have a knee jerk reaction to group projects, and I think this video essay is a perfect example of how to combine two distinct voices and visions into a single project. The exploration into Union’s career is long overdue and so deserved. I think what struck me most was how strong the voice was. They make no apologies for their stance, and really challenge Hollywood to not just reflect but act. They really manage to ask some tough questions of not just the Hollywood system, but those that benefit from it. It’s theory with praxis and it’s all deliciously powerful.

Oswald Iten

Film scholar, video essayist, animator, PhD researcher

‘The Lighthouse’ (2021) by Leonardo Govoni, Cristina López Caballer, Mehran Abdollahi

Amuse-œil by Eric Faden

Barbara Stanwyck Rides Again by Shannon Harris, Catherine Russell

Sound and Silence in Gravity: Fidelity vs Intelligibility by Jordan Schonig

Special Mention: A Supercut of Supercuts by Max Tohline.

Miklós Kiss

Associate professor in audiovisual arts and cognition at University of Groningen, NL / co-author of Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

A wonderfully rich follow-up of Visual Disturbances (on my S&S best of list of 2019) on the analytical urge of ‘interrogating’ filmic images, obsessing on a rather invisible 1.14-second-long shot from Citizen Kane, and on those ‘small gifts for the eye’ that subtly but abundantly appear in Playtime. Like I said earlier: Faden’s care for quality is admirable and inspiring.

Mike Figgis on Timecode and Split-Screen Cinema by Leigh Singer

The COVID pandemic has normalised a once special technique of split screen, forcing its ‘cubist psychology’ on us while locked in our homes with only virtual split-windows to the world. Singer’s interview with Mike Figgis, director of the quadruple split screen film Timecode, is a highly informative, superbly comprehensive, and abundantly illustrated walkthrough of the (cinematic) history and effect of the technique.

Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, but as an ethnographic documentary exploring the life of lighthouse keepers in the early 20th century, directed by Robert Flaherty. An ‘ethnographic screwmeneutics’ project by the students of my Videographic Criticism course at the University of Groningen.

A massive (two hours!) video on supercuts, covering every possible angle on the technique, thereby forcing all the other supercut-researchers to find another subject of study.

Keating, with his signature analytical thoroughness, walks us through his audiovisual thinking process, distinguishing between camera movements delivering characters’ ‘revelation’ and ‘recognition’.

VR supercut diorama, the first of its kind, piecing together 180 films, TV series and commercials of the Monte Gelato waterfalls (near Rome) in 3D and with spatialised audio. Great idea, incredible effort, and superb implementation. Cinephile goosebumps are guaranteed!

Jaap Kooijman

Associate professor in media studies, University of Amsterdam, organiser ASCA videographic criticism seminar

The Black and White Coffee Set by Barbara Zecchi

Barbara Zecchi’s The Black and White Coffee Set is brilliant in its simplicity. The focus on one prop (he black-and-white coffee set in Ana Muylaert’s Que horas ela volta?) and the way the design of the audiovisual essay aesthetically repeats it, effectively work together to show the narrative importance of a seemingly mundane object. While its playfulness makes the audiovisual essay enjoyable to watch, its more ‘serious’ argument about Brazilian class and race relations remains clear throughout.

Staring Back by Sara Delshad

Although Staring Back works perfectly well as a study of auteurism, convincingly showing a signature style of filmmaker Chris Marker, Sara Delshad’s audiovisual essay stands out for me in the way it forces the viewer to become aware of their own subject position. The audiovisual essay highlights the human and non-human animal subjects staring back at the camera and, in extension, at the viewer. Those moments when the subjects answer the viewer’s gaze evokes a feeling – at least in me – of being caught staring. Delshad cleverly uses slow motion and freeze frame to enhance this sensation.

Sonic Chronicle, Post Sound by Cormac Donnelly

Some audiovisual essays really teach you something new. In Sonic Chronicle, Post Sound, Cormac Donnelly applies R. Murray Schafer’s definition of the soundscape to sonically analyze the newsrooms scenes in Zodiac, The Post, and All the President’s Men. Donnelly uses both sonic and visual techniques to make sound tangible, enabling those with untrained ears, like myself, not only to pay attention to, but also make sense of sound.

Evelyn Kreutzer

Postdoctoral researcher, Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf

Practices of Viewing: Mask by Johannes Binotto

I always attempt to curate my suggestions for the annual best video essays lists in a way that represents the breadth of video-essayistic output. Binotto’s Practices of Viewing series reflects sophisticated, in-depth, and yet very accessible and informative introductions to film-analytical concepts that are very suitable for both teaching purposes and film-scholarly thinking more broadly. I like Mask in particular because it evokes multiple layers of cinematic framing and spectatorship that seems to speak intuitively to our current moment of increasingly ‘masked’ experiences of the world.

Silence and Words: Voice-over and Trauma in Coixet & Campion by Barbara Zecchi

Barbara Zecchi’s video essay is a powerful, deeply affective video on cinematic sound, specifically the transcendence of internal and external sound (experience and narration). As a sound scholar, I always look and listen for videos like these.

The Typewriter (Supercut) by Ariel Avissar

Ariel Avissar’s video is less an academic video essay than it is an impressive, entertaining, and insightful supercut of a single object/motif across numerous media sources that is simple in its conceptual premise but very sophisticated in its execution and certainly provocative of critical reflexion.

TV Dictionary —  Marcella by Barbara Zecchi

Like the entire TV Dictionary  series (curated by Ariel Avissar), Barbara Zecchi’s video on Marcella turns the seemingly narrow pairing of a dictionary entry to a TV series into a multi-faceted, scholarly evocative, and visually stunning exercise. I like the whole series but so far this entry has been my favorite.

Video essayist

I don’t know what I was doing this year, but apparently it wasn’t watching a whole lot of videos, so no ‘hidden gems’ from me this year. But these three entertaining and engaging videos, while popular in terms of views, may have slipped through the more academic net. So enjoy!

Space Jam 2 is a Lie by John Walsh (Super Eyepatch Wolf)

I’m a sucker for some fiction, and Super Eyepatch Wolf sure knows how to have fun with the video essay format, making some of the most creative uses of the form. This video was a stand out for me this year.

The Battle of SHARKS ! By CGP  Grey

A charming story of the battle between art and city council planning permission, I don’t know if I’ve ever finished a video feeling more giddy and delighted. Review from my mum: “That video is worth more than every other video on YouTube put together, and deserves an award.”

CO - VID s: the 90’s neoliberal fantasia as experienced by daria morgendorffer, millennial by Ian Danskin (Innuendo Studios)

A wonderful defense of a defense of millennial teens, and an account of millennial nostalgia, which I am already nostalgic for. Ahh 28th Jan 2021, when I was still so full of hope for the year ahead. Ian Danskin continues to make exceptionally engaging videos from a deeply personal perspective that perfectly balances anecdote and academia.

Kevin B. Lee

Video essayist and educator; @alsolikelife

Three Minutes: A Lengthening by Bianca Stigter (watch trailer )

Three minutes of home movie footage taken in 1938 are explored through an impressive array of videographic techniques to create a vast and deeply moving contemplation on lives lost and history regained.

Also: ‘One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean’ by Wang Yuyan (watch trailer ), whose epileptic temporality goes in the polar opposite direction to achieve its own revelatory experience of the extreme online present.

Home When You Return by Carl Elsaesser (see details )

Stretching and blurring the boundaries of video essay, experimental film and home movie, traces of a 1950s homemade melodrama by amateur filmmaker Joan Thurber Baldwin intermingle with a mournful homage to the author’s grandmother and her vacated home. A powerful mélange of cinematic and domestic spaces, past and present.

Also: Screening Room: On Digital Film Festivals , by Jessica McGoff

Launched this year, this series currently consists of five video essays, each concerning a different method through which viewing is mediated (muting, screenshot, pausing, fast forwarding, masking). With an arresting combination of playfulness and obsessiveness, Binotto re-performs and reflects upon the techniques that govern spectatorship.

Also: Amuse-oeil by Eric Faden

What Isn’t a Video Essay? By Grace Lee (What’s So Great About That?)

YouTube video essays have generally bloated into hours-long vlogfests to maximize monetization algorithms, but here is a rigorously crafted tour de force that rewards rewatching for the many memeic details it contains. It breathlessly performs a mind engaging the internet on its own terms, utilizing the temporal and audiovisual affordances of always-on networked life to reflect thoughtfully back upon itself.

Also: The Scholarly Video Essay by Ian Garwood. Garwood demurs from calling this a video essay, but they certainly demonstrate how pre-recorded lectures can evolve from a lowly COVD -era necessity into an arresting videographic form in its own right.

This was released just around last year’s poll; since then it’s become a go-to reference for film dinosaurs like me to make sense of how film culture can thrive among a new generation and its preferred platforms.

Also, this .

Transitional Moments in Cinematic Virtual Reality by Sarah Atkinson

A critical and revealing interrogation of the gender (en)coding of virtual reality as it has been presented in cinema, implicitly calling for a more inclusive re-coding of these mediums not only as a means for entertainment but for social co-presence.

Also: Michael Ironside and I by Marian Mayland (watch trailer )

The Best Simpsons Episode is About Losing Everything You Love by Jacob Geller

As also evidenced in his The Game That Won’t Let You See All of It , Geller is able to narrate the YouTube video essay and its pop culture preoccupations into areas of uncommon sensitivity and existential poignancy.

Also: Mad Men’s Babylon: Mapping out a Musical Metaphor by Ariane Hudelet

Adrian Martin

Film critic and audiovisual essayist

Satirical pastiches are good when they are accurate, and this one is so accurate it manages to satirise several things at once, from nerd-fan culture to the Kogonada craze.

Prendre conscience / perdre connaissance by Occitane Lacurie

The smart conjunction of Last Year at Marienbad and Westworld via a quote from surrealist cinephile Robert Benayoun – I could hardly ask for anything more.

Most audiovisual essays depend on some level of prior film analysis, but not so many are actually very good at really achieving an analysis above the most obvious and basic undergraduate level. Keating is an excellent analyst and he turns his insights into finely constructed montage pieces, like this one.

A lot of so-called remix culture simply, from Adam Curtis downward, simply celebrates the brute fact of being able to sample and throw things together — often quite incoherently. Lynch’s superb work takes a patient strategy of unmixing to comment on those genuine remix masters, the Soda_Jerk team.

Vedette — For Laura Mulvey by Catherine Grant

Catherine Grant’s dispositifs of audiovisual comparison, often with an inscribed text component, can look deceptively simple. This one revealingly lines up words from Laura Mulvey’s recent work with breathtaking passages of two classic Max Ophüls films.

Dialogue III : CAROL / JESSE by Oswald Iten

This is the culminating and best work in Iten’s series interweaving Todd Haynes’ Safe and Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon. More than a matter of demonstrating the banal influence of one film or filmmaker on another, this audiovisual essay achieves a dreamy, hallucinatory intensity and texture.

Secrets of Ghosts by Johanna Vaude

If you’re going to re-imagine a pre-existing film in a new and creative montage, really push it to something extreme. Vaude, among the most masterful of all practitioners in this field, works her special magic on Mulholland Drive, part of her series of ongoing commissions from Arte’s BLOW UP  program.

Daniel Mcilwraith

Video essayist and video editor

in process… | james benning at neugerriemschneider by Erika Balsom

The Representation of Rape on Screen by Lucie Emch

Alan O’L eary

Associate professor of film and media in digital contexts at Aarhus University. His manifesto for a parametric videographic criticism was published this year in NECSUS .

Nuit Debout/Up At Night by Nelson Makengo (watch trailer )

Congolese artist-filmmaker Nelson Makengo spreads his portrait of Kinshasa, a city beset by power cuts, across three screens punctuated with bare lightbulbs and the dancing beams of torches, the whole underpinned by an evocative sound world of generator noises, off-screen conversations and voices from the radio. Some participants at the ethnographic film festival where I saw Up At Night complained they found the three-screen format distracting, but it is precisely the reflexive use of multiscreen—sometimes showing identical images, sometimes different, and sometimes nothing—that places Up At Night in the essay film tradition and lifts it clear of documentary or auto-ethnography.

Obliged to placate a UK funding system structurally suspicious of academic and artistic enquiry, Screenworks , the journal of practice research in screen media, insists on a detailed setting out of research questions and social impact for each of its video publications. Elisabeth Brun duly complies in the statement accompanying her intimate and spectacular 3 x Shapes of Home, but the film contains all the elements it needs to explain itself. I love how it’s unsatisfied with, and unafraid to compromise, its own beauty, and how the playful voiceover interacts dynamically with content and form. It’s a sensual and conceptual treat.

Ian Garwood has used tweets as ‘research outputs’ in a novel way as part of his Indy Vinyl project (see his 2020 article in NECSUS ) but Will DiGravio has actually deployed the structural affordances of Twitter in his year-long analysis of Rio Bravo. In 365 daily tweets, DiGravio methodically posted 22-second clips from Hawk’s film prefaced by an observation or reaction in 280 characters. This is ‘video/essay’ as iterative performance rather than reporting of analysis and I like to think of it in the tradition of Barthes’ S/Z, where scientific method is pushed to absurdist (and intensely personal) ends.

The Television Will Not Be Summarized by Elizabeth Alsop

Elizabeth Alsop is concerned in this video essay with an ‘exhibitionism’ that resists and exceeds plot summary in shows like The Leftovers, Hannibal and Twin Peaks: The Return. Alsop talks in her [in]Transition creator statement of confronting the methodological challenge of dramatizing (rather than summarizing) spectacular televisual phenomena without merely appropriating their rhetorical force. I admire how she meets this challenge with wit and economy (and without voiceover) through a combination of sound and cryptic imagery, multiscreen and onscreen text. The framing sections effectively stage the meditative experience of the extended extracts that form the central bulk of the video essay.

OUT OF PLACE (Or, Lost in NOMADLAND ) by Catherine Grant

Apparently, Catherine Grant has asked not to be mentioned in this year’s poll, but it would be strange to omit our leading role model in ‘filmmaking research’ (Grant’s preferred term). Anyway, I have chosen an epigraphic video I don’t particularly like. Grant’s treatment of onscreen text is exemplary, as ever, but the quote from Sarah Ahmed is coercive and folksy, while the juxtaposition of quirky music and looped images of Frances McDormand risks whimsy. The point for me, though, is that this sketch forms part of a broader practice that is always more than the sum of its video parts.

He Almost Forgets That There Is a Maker of the World by Ben Spatz, N. Eda Erçin, Caroline Gatt and Agnieszka Mendel

In this essay, onscreen text is used to annotate a 30-minute single-take recording of researcher-performers using speech, song and body to interact with books and each other to investigate some meanings of Jewishness. This ‘illuminated video’, as maker Ben Spatz dubs it, is an expression of what Spatz refers to in a series of writings as ‘the video way of thinking’ (see 2018 article of that name and the 2020 book ‘ Making a Laboratory ’). What I particularly value here is the idea and practice of essay-making as an experimental situation rather than as the mere documentation or reporting of research.

Julian Palmer

YouTube video essayist, The Discarded Image

A trip into the video essay metaverse, but done in a unique and funny style that makes potentially academic content propulsively entertaining.

Using a combination of self-shot footage (mostly churches) and some of the great existential films from Bergman, Schrader, Tarkovsky, Malkick, etc, LSOO explores why he’s drawn to religious art and architecture, without being overtly religious himself, which I can relate to.

The Invisible Horror of The Shining by Kristian T. Williams (kaptainkristian)

After being away from the scene for two years, it was great to see the return of Kristian’s trademark slick style. He takes arguably the most talked to death film of all time, and makes it fresh.

Why Is Bo Burnham’s Inside like That? by Thomas Flight

Clearly inspired by Bo Burnham’s groundbreaking achievement, Flight applies many similar techniques—with numerous camera set-ups and video essay styles—to explore that work in a wholly original way.

The Transformation of Anthony Hopkins by Luís Azevedo (Little White Lies)

A touching and creative tribute to the legendary actor. Azevedo has Hopkins in dialogue with himself, creating an emotional journey through his many roles.

I’m sure we all use movies to guide us through the toughest times. And this emotionally raw video uses them as a way to remember a loved one, and deal with a devastating loss.

Jemma Saunders

Audio-visual PhD student at the University of Birmingham

Epigraph —  Grand Budapest Hotel by Owen Mason-Hill

Concise videographic epigraph that explores and pleasingly manipulates colour, maintaining an Anderson aesthetic throughout.

Documentary as a Genre of Fiction by Oscar Mealia

A complex reflection on documentary storytelling that focuses on Orson Welles’ F for Fake and includes a performative element from the creator. Rich in its academic grounding and playful in execution.

Audiovisual Film Criticism and Cosmopolitanism ( AKA The Haunting of the Headful Academics) by Ian Garwood

A video essay that ate other video essays. This really resonated with me, not only for its acknowledgement and incorporation of the Zoom space we have inhabited for much of the last two years, but for the important questions it poses about how we choose our material as essayists.

I just find this joyous to watch: beautifully paced and a brilliant example of how the supercut can reveal as well as revere.

This is a powerful and haunting piece of work. In slowing down, repeating, and zooming in to archival footage, it forces the viewer to confront and re-engage with what may seem familiar images of the Holocaust.

BBC Inside Cinema series

Many of these bite-size explorations are essentially well-crafted compilations with voiceovers rather than more experimental or academically essayistic pieces, but I learn something every time I watch one. There’s an eclectic range of topics, from uncanny spaces and nuns on film; to examinations of the macguffin and credit sequences.

An Investigation of Colour in Black Mirror by Matt Cook

I’m a firm believer that any video essay should make the most of the form and this is a strong example of an undergraduate doing just that through employing various audio-visual techniques to develop his argument. It’s great to hear a regional accent too!

Daniel Schindel

Associate editor, Hyperallergic

ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS Tokimeki Memorial by Tim Rogers (Action Button)

Tim Rogers transitioned from being a leader within New Games Journalism to producing some of the most in-depth video reviews about video games and how they create meaning. This epic six-hour essay goes in-depth on a little-known Japanese romance game, including summaries of two playthroughs of it. In line with the rest of Rogers’s work, it is not merely about this game, but about a sprawling, branching series of fascinating tangents around interpersonal relationships and how interactive art can engage them.

Why Don’t the Cops Fight Each Other? by Grayson Earle

A terrific example of found commentary in pop culture. The designers of Grand Theft Auto V likely didn’t intend to make a statement on the ‘Blue Wall of Silence’, but by programming police officers not to attack one another, no matter what, they unwittingly replicated real-world dynamics. Earle turns his tinkering with the game’s code into an intriguing investigation into media message-making.

Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story by Abigail Thorn (Philosophy Tube)

This is the least ‘essay-like’ work on my ballot, but Abigail Thorn is pushing the creative envelope so much within the field of popular YouTubers that I feel she deserves mention. One thing I love about Philosophy Tube is how Thorn finds a way to incorporate the concepts she discusses into the forms of the videos themselves. Here, she makes clear the performative nature of gender by having a cis male portray the closeted, male-presenting version of herself. The moment when that actor steps aside and Thorn comes out (sorry) is one of my favourite in any video this year.

The way that Binotto scrutinises the structures and conventions of digital modes of viewing through the lens of analog interfaces is consistently engrossing. It’s always a treat each time a new instalment in this series pops up.

There had to be something here acknowledging the pandemic, and McGoff’s literate and deeply considered rumination on the experience of a virtual film festival spoke more to my supremely odd times as a cinephile under lockdown than anything else I’ve seen on the matter.

The History of the Atlanta Falcons by Jon Bois, Alex Rubenstein, Joe Ali

Jon Bois might just be my favourite documentarian working today, and I have a strong suspicion that soon a lot more internet videos are going to be taking cues from his work. This multipart look at the trials and tribulations of the Falcons is a longform study of failure in all its myriad forms. In the hands of Bois and his collaborators, we see in this team a devastating series of near-misses, could-have-beens, and lost opportunities. Sports narratives often focus on snatching victory from the jaws of defeat; who knew the opposite could be so engrossing?

My only complaint about Grace Lee is that she doesn’t upload more often! Especially since in her recent work she’s demonstrated an incredible visual sensibility, casually packing tons of information — jokes, easter eggs, and more — into every shot. This video is near and dear to my heart because it speaks to my own struggles to define video essays, and my gnawing feeling that sometimes we might be getting too permissive with the term, or alternatively too restrictive. Few essayists explore this kind of ambivalence as well as Lee.

Shannon Strucci

Video essayist,  StrucciMovies

how i would defeat the immortal snail by Faline San

Faline San’s videos are typically anecdotes about her life or explanations of her thought process regarding bizarre niche topics. They caught my attention due to her quick pacing, engaging storytelling, her finely-tuned (and very funny) editing style, and her self-deprecating sense of humor. how i would defeat the immortal snail is a great example of this – it’s essentially a ten minute rant about a Reddit thought experiment , but it’s very funny and complex. This is especially impressive considering she is still a teenager, and I look forward to seeing what work she produces in the future!

The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers, and Mediums by John Walsh (Super Eyepatch Wolf)

John’s essays are always funny and thought-provoking and he had some more avant-garde videos this year that pushed video essays as a medium (specifically his Space Jam and Dell nightmare videos, which I’d also recommend) but his fake psychics video stood out to me as something with the potential to help save a viewer from being taken advantage of, which is tremendously valuable. It’s dense with research and history and comes from both a place of anger and empathy. It’s a fantastic video.

Scout Tafoya

Johannes had a hell of a year. This whole series is superb.

Tenderness — Rio Bravo Diary by Will DiGravio

De la femme by Caterina Cucinotta and Jesús Ramé López

Reimagining Blackness and Architecture ( MOMA ) by Russell Yaffe, Rafael Salazar Moreno ( RAVA  Films)

Great series.

Our Focus by Kevin B. Lee

Max Tohline

Independent media scholar and video essayist

Flight of the Navigator | VFX Cool by Alan Melikdjanian (Captain Disillusion)

Captain Disillusion’s videos debunking viral hoaxes or misinformation about visual effects wizardry have been top-tier YouTube content for years, but nothing could have prepared me for this ravishing deconstruction of the technical magic in the cult-classic Flight of the Navigator. I don’t have euphoric superlatives extreme enough for how I felt watching this video the first time — not only does C.D. use VFX to analyze VFX (probably the final boss of videographic criticism); his attention, research, wit, obsession, and good old fashioned formal analysis blow everything else out of the water.

Though it has stiff competition from Faden, Keating, Mittell, and others, Mediated Auscultation is my favorite peer-reviewed essay of the year. Like many film scholars, I’ve never given enough attention to sound — precisely because sound never struck me as being essentially ‘cinematic’. But Talijan shows that cinema’s promise of immersive sensing from a distance applies as much to sound as image. The icing on the cake is that while plenty of video essays are ‘meditative’, few have made the tone demonstrate the argument as Talijan does here, with the audio putting me in a near- ASMR  haze.

I never realized it was possible to deploy a parody of a video essay (in this case a classic on neorealism from kogonada) in the service of an argument that is not only NOT a joke, but possibly richer than that of the original. Whereas kogonada merely illustrated a reasonably conventional understanding of the difference between de Sica’s style and classical Hollywood style, Avissar completely overturned my narrow-minded received takes on Snyder by offering me a different mode of attention. Even if an ambiguity remains as to what Snyder’s style ‘means’, I’ll never pigeonhole him the same way again.

No Face Is an Incel by CJ the X

Generally I’d exclude wall-to-wall-talking-head channels from a list of great video essays, but CJ the X is in the middle of an annus mirabilis. So, for those who don’t have the 2.5 hours for CJ ’s urgent cry-of-the-soul Burnham/Bezos essay , here’s an intoxicating 100-mile-an-hour sprint of an essay that performs a Žižekian looking-awry on Spirited Away that might not be dressed up in academic finery, but has a more nimble intellect than many who’ve put up with the steamroller of peer review.

As we enter the eighth or ninth wave of rumination on what ‘counts’ as a video essay and how to think videographically, Johannes Binotto has become the undisputed master of reflection on the everyday practices of viewing that form the foundation of what video essayists do. Watching his ongoing Practices of Viewing series (in particular the one on the screenshot, but also others on pausing, fast-forwarding, muting), I felt like I’d found Arne Saknussemm’s name scratched into the cave wall— a fellow traveler.

eye / contact by Niki Radman

This essay takes its time and a good deal of text setting up its argument, but when it finally unveils its purely visual denouement — a 3x3 grid of images that jaw-droppingly links one note of Barry Jenkins’s formal language with his whole symphony of themes surrounding identity — I felt like I was gonna turn into drops.

Inside: Are Video Games Art? by Arttective

The tip of the YouTube iceberg conceals a Sierpinski triangle of icebergs beneath it — so many that it’s mathematically remarkable that any individual essay ever made it to my eyes at all. Had I not met Arttective on the Essay Library Discord server, I wouldn’t have seen this gem, which uses the rewind and skip keys on YouTube to inject some tantalizing interactivity into the grammar of the video essay. But I’m so glad I did: the experience is engrossing. If anyone out there solves the puzzle in this video, please let me know the answer!

David Verdeure

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

The pandemic proves fertile ground for video essays. Changing film distribution models mean movies are available sooner to audiovisual critics. In-person and live events have been replaced with pre-taped materials, creating another vein of visuals for video essay makers to tap into. We’re often confined to our personal visual echo chambers that are filled with screens that confound as much as they clarify. And that we’re forced to spend more time in close quarters may also contribute to the unmistakable trend that video essays are getting longer. In 2021 audiovisual strategies that are common to the video essay popped up everywhere. In academia and the arts. In news broadcasts and film festivals. In talk shows and on TikTok. These are just a few remarkable examples.

In his feature-length video Tohline gives an overview of the history, the aesthetics and the modus operandi of the supercut. He examines the tension between its dueling impulses of (fannish) desire and serious analysis, and he proposes strategies to increase the form’s critical impact. But most important is how Tohline regards the supercut not as a mere editing technique but as the material expression of a specific and novel way of thinking. We try to make sense of the world by ordering it into either archives or databases, and the supercut is the poster child for that database mode.

Just when you think the whole supercut model has been mapped, along comes an innovative application of this strategy. Davide Rapp combines clips of the Monte Gelato waterfalls near Rome into a 28-minute VR collage. Scores of rectangular film and television scenes together form a full circle, recasting the role of the spectator from immobile viewer in a theater seat to participatory flaneur. Montegelato is an immersive three-dimensional palimpsest that puts the viewer at the center of this nexus of cinematic storytelling: a location that inspired filmmakers working across different genres, in different times and with very different means.

Gyres 1-3 by Ellie Ga (watch excerpt )

American artist Ellie Ga’s single channel video installation Gyres 1-3 is another example of how to put an inventive spin on a classic videographic strategy. This is a desktop video essay of sorts, with the desktop being a light table onto which she arranges and rearranges transparent photographs. Her essayistic voice over narration is triggered by the succession of (often) archetypal images that serve as lodestars for the video’s loose narrative structure. But unlike the more traditional virtual desktop, Ellie Ga’s physical handling of the transparent slides adds a tactile and more personal touch to the process.

Under the White Mask: The Film That Haesaerts Could Have Made by Matthias De Groof (watch trailer )

In 1958 Paul Haesaerts made Under the Black Mask, a documentary on Congolese art. That Belgian film was formally inventive but it also perpetuated racist stereotypes. Scholar and filmmaker Matthias De Groof remixed Haesaerts’ film into a scathing critique of colonialism. He combined the footage of mute masks with an impassioned voice over by slam poet Maravilha Munto. In Haesaerts’ version, art hid atrocities. Aestheticism was used as a mask for the ugly face of colonialism to hide behind. This powerful remix tears off that mask: it uses exactly the same artistic means but reclaims their critical potential.

Cinema Turns: Catalan Creative Documentary by Celia Sainz

In this beautifully paced and expertly constructed video essay Celia Sainz focuses on a quartet of documentary films made in Catalonia over the past two decades by female filmmakers. She does not seek to ascribe a collective national identity or ideological agenda to these works but looks for shared artistic (cinematographic and narrative) strategies. Like the creative documentaries it studies, this video essay uses time and tone to drive home its points. The assured audiovisual approach and well-judged rhythm of this piece are part and parcel to its intellectual and affective impact.

Lucie Emch’s video essay deals with the troublesome on-screen representation of rape. She starts off in a conventional way but then brings music videos into the mix. The video essay really hits its stride when it mashes up Jenny Wilson’s RAPIN * music video (from 2018) with Ida Lupino’s film Outrage (from 1950).

This fine piece was published by Tecmerin. That online journal deserves to be lauded for its persistent efforts to bring to the fore the work of video essay makers who are not native English speakers, and for the fact it reviews and publishes pieces in many different languages.

Barbara Zecchi

Professor and director of the film studies programme, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The most intelligent video-essay I’ve seen on sound (or rather, on lack of sound) in cinema. Brilliant!

With over 40 works to date, Ariel Avissar’s intelligent project has certainly accomplished its expected goal of increasing the video essay’s interest in television products. It has also achieved a less expected result: it strengthened a community of video essayists who have engaged playfully in this almost addictive collaborative endeavor.

Film Thought 1. Will the Plausible: On FIVE CARD STUD by Will DiGravio

Skillfully produced (superb storytelling and rhythm), this video-essay takes full advantage of the form’s possibilities by centering in a simple perceptive observation. A little gem which marks the beginning of a promising new series by Will DiGravio

Cinephilia translated into an audiovisual essay at its best. A deeply personal and emotional account of Adrian Martin’s love for film and for film analysis becomes one of the best pieces I can think of on a rigorous and theoretical reflection on the video-graphic essay as a form.

Public Controversy and Film Censorship. The release of All Quiet on Western Front (1930) in Berlin by Manuel Palacio y Ana Mejón

I saw this video-essay for the first time when Ana Mejón presented it at the video-graphic webinar organized by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in September. I was immediately impressed. It’s a superbly crafted video-essay that condenses thorough and serious work of scholarly research.

A powerful and chilling work that did not go unnoticed at the Adelio Ferrero Festival, Italy. I look forward to the multi-modal project that will be published in the upcoming issue of Research in Film and History together with this video-essay.

It’s so smart and funny, and, as Jason Mittell said, it “speaks to many of us.”

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Other things to explore

The best video essays of 2023.

By Queline Meadows

The best films of 2023 – all the votes

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

• December 20, 2023
• Joel Robinson

The Psychology of YouTube – Why Videos Go Viral

In the vast ocean of YouTube videos, some manage to rise above the rest and achieve viral status, amassing millions of views and capturing the collective attention of internet users. The phenomenon of viral videos is not purely a matter of luck; it is deeply rooted in the psychology of human behavior. This essay explores the psychological factors that contribute to the virality of YouTube videos, shedding light on why some content creators strike gold while others struggle to gain traction.

The Power of Emotion

One of the key drivers behind viral videos is the emotional impact they deliver. Content that evokes strong emotions, whether it’s joy, surprise, anger, or empathy, tends to resonate deeply with viewers. People are more likely to share content that stirs their emotions because it allows them to express their feelings and connect with others who have experienced similar emotions. Thus, videos that tap into the emotional core of human psychology have a higher chance of going viral.

Relatability and Identity

Another psychological factor at play in viral videos is relatability. Viewers are drawn to content that mirrors their own experiences, beliefs, or aspirations. When people see themselves or their ideals reflected in a video, they are more likely to engage with it and share it with their social circles. This connection creates a sense of identity and community, making the video go viral as viewers seek to strengthen their bonds with like-minded individuals.

The Element of Surprise

Surprise is a powerful psychological trigger that can propel a video to viral status. Humans are naturally curious and seek novelty and unpredictability. Videos that incorporate unexpected twists, humor, or shocking moments captivate viewers, holding their attention and prompting them to share the content with others. Surprise not only engages the audience but also keeps them guessing, encouraging repeat views and viral spread.

Social Proof and Herd Mentality

Psychology tells us that humans are inherently social creatures, influenced by the behaviors of those around them. When a video begins to gain traction and accumulate likes, comments, and shares, it triggers a psychological phenomenon known as “social proof.” Viewers are more inclined to engage with content that already has social validation, believing that if others find it valuable, they will too. This herd mentality can rapidly escalate the popularity of a video, ultimately leading to virality.

The Network Effect

Lastly, the network effect plays a significant role in the virality of YouTube videos. As a video gains momentum and is shared across various social media platforms, it reaches a broader audience, leading to an exponential increase in views and shares. This interconnectedness of online communities and the ease of sharing content through social networks amplify the psychological triggers discussed above, creating the perfect conditions for a video to go viral.

The psychology of YouTube viral videos is a fascinating realm where emotions, relatability, surprise, social proof, and network effects converge. Content creators who understand these psychological factors and strategically incorporate them into their videos have a better chance of crafting content that captures the hearts and minds of viewers, propelling their videos to viral status. Viral videos are not just about chance; they are products of deliberate psychological engineering that tap into the fundamental aspects of human behavior in the digital age.

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November 21, 2011

New Theory Explains What Makes a Video Go Viral

According to an algorithm, the four ingredients required are congruency, emotive strength, network involvement and something called "paired meme synergy"

By Natalie Wolchover

More than 10 million people have watched a YouTube video of an iPhone being pulverized in a blender. It's actually a commercial for Blendtec — a company most viewers had probably never heard of. But with the viral clip, Blendtec let social networking spread its name and message rather than paying for a mass advertising campaign. And it worked like a charm.

"Viral-produced movies" are the new holy grail of advertising, but they're tough to pull off. Only the best among them can overcome the slight annoyance people feel when they realize a video they enjoyed was actually an ad — and yet compel them to share it with friends anyway. As Brent Coker, a marketing professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, says, "Ensuring the success of a viral-produced movie is still largely hit-and-miss … babies, pranks, and stunts seem to have great success on some occasions, but turn into catastrophic failures on others." [ See video examples ]

So what defines a great ad — one that a viewer will choose to Tweet or post to Facebook?

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Coker has come up with a recipe for success called the branded viral movie predictor algorithm. According to the algorithm, the four ingredients required for a video to go viral are congruency, emotive strength, network involvement, and something called "paired meme synergy."

First, the themes of a video must be congruent with people's pre-existing knowledge of the brand it is advertising. "For example, Harley Davidson for most people is associated with Freedom, Muscle, Tattoos, and Membership," Coker explained on his website . Videos that strengthen that association meet with approval, "but as soon as we witness associations with the brand that are inconsistent with our brand knowledge, we feel tension." In the latter case, few people will share the video, and it will quickly "go extinct."

Second, only viral-produced videos with strong emotional appeal make the cut, and the more extreme the emotions, the better. Happy and funny videos don't tend to fare as well as scary or disgusting ones, Coker said. [ What Is the Most Disgusting Thing In the World?]

Third, videos must be relevant to a large network of people — college students or office workers, for example.

And last, Coker came up with 16 concepts — known on the Internet as "memes" — that viral-produced videos tend to have, and discovered that videos only go viral if they have the right pairings of these concepts. "When combined, some combinations appear to work better together than others," he told Life's Little Mysteries.

For example, the concept he calls Voyeur, which is when a video appears to be someone's mobile phone footage, works well when combined with Eyes Surprise — unexpectedness. These also work well in combination with Simulation Trigger, which is when "the viewer imagines themselves being friends [with the people in the video] and sharing the same ideals," he said.

According to Coker, one viral video that used all three of those memes — and exemplified the other BVMP strategies, too — was a 2007 ad by Quiksilver, the beach apparel company. The grainy footage showed surfers throwing dynamite in a river and surfing on the resulting waves. It quickly topped 1 million views.

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A guide to making the next viral video essay

Anyone who is familiar with YouTube has definitely been recommended at least one video essay on a topic no one probably cares about. There is even a chance that you have watched a few of these videos yourself. But have you ever wondered what it would be like to make a video essay yourself with the least amount of effort?

The first step is to choose a topic. To make sure your video becomes the next big thing flooding everyone's recommendations, try to pick the most convoluted topic that comes to your mind. It does not need to make much sense to your viewers or even to yourself. As long as it sounds unusual enough for people to click on it, you are good to go. Coming up with an interesting idea can be hard, so you can choose from either a controversial political opinion, the overcomplication of a mundane topic, or the hidden meaning behind a children's television show no one has thought of in ten years.

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Second, sit down to write your script. Start by jotting down as many points as you can think of and then stretch it even further. One of the biggest selling points of video essays is their overextended length, so you need to ensure that it goes on for at least an hour. The longer the video, the better, because let's face it, there is a very good chance that whoever clicked on it will lose interest within the first five minutes and just let it run as background noise. Jampack your script with fancy words to trick your audience into thinking that you are smart so that they will hopefully trust you to know what you are talking about. If you do this right, you might get plenty of comments letting you know how much they appreciate your video for helping them be productive because your nonsensical droning somehow managed to help them concentrate.

Video Essay channels on YouTube

Next is filming and editing the video. You need to be prepared for the off chance that someone does actually watch it beyond the first five minutes. The best way to structure your content is by recording a voiceover and letting it play over random stock images and videos that vaguely relate to what you are discussing. Just in case you do have the patience and energy to film yourself, the best place you can pick is your room as the background. Not only will this intrigue your viewers into trying to sneak a peak at your belongings, a clean room will lull the audience into thinking you have your life together. Other choices can include a green screen so you can overlay whatever background you want on top, or just pick the cleanest wall you can find. For finishing touches, throw in some random meme references and long-forgotten video clips at random intervals to keep it fresh for anyone who watches the whole thing.

After you upload your video, wait for the response. If the view count does not meet your expectations, do not despair. Instead, just repeat the same steps as much as you can, and maybe one of these days people will appreciate your hyper-specific rant session.

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Why Some Videos Go Viral

It depends on how they make you feel and why you want to share them.

A viral video is every marketer’s dream. It’s the surest way to cut through the noise of the internet. And studies show that social viewers—people who watch shared content rather than videos they’ve found by browsing—are far more likely to buy a product and recommend it to others.

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