by Terence A. Anthony
At this point, it’s seems ironic to
the casual reader that I am praising an audio visual format, using just words. However
that sentence is a testament to the fact that video essays aren’t as simple as
writing one.
Video essays for the unacquainted
are an evolution of the vlog. Vlogs are just blogs in video form. While
vlogging itself has evolved into an art form of its own (see Casey Neistat),
video essays to me are more ambitious.
Not only the person producing
them has to come up with a script and reference the source materials, they need
to find the proper video or graphic to tag along with it. An essay with several
pictures may mean scouring through the net for the right pictures. That could
easily be done today with a search engine. Video clips on the other hand would
mean the creator has to be well-versed with the subject matter prior. You can’t
just google for a picture that’s related, you need to find a video with the
right timing and the right phrase that corresponds with the right narration.
While there are vloggers who try
to explain complex ideas through their vlogs, most are concern with the creator’s
daily life. Video essays tend to explain high concept material and bombard it
with expansive commentary.
The best vlogs to me are like paintings
of fruits. They can be beautiful and you may spend hours talking about the
details and intricacies of the painting. Yet, it is something common and what
we can see or compile ourselves. What we see is a representation of what we
know from our daily lives through artistic lenses.
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| LA MERIENDA BY LUIS EGINDIO MERENDEZ |
The best video essays to me on
the other hand are like surreal paintings of heaven and hell. They deal with
concepts that are outside of the everyday life. They are not immediate to our
surroundings. The view invoked is normally rich and cinematic. They are distant from us but we think about it all the time and the distraction economy, encourages us to put a lot of thought into our anxieties. It is not things
that we deal with on a daily basis. Yet, it touches our basic feelings and
ideals. They set out political, social or cultural commentary. They used the
surreal to talk about concepts that we think will be inserted into our daily
conversations.
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| "SATAN, SIN & DEATH" BY WILLIAM HOGGARTH | THE PAINTING DEPICTS A SCENE FROM JOHN MILTON'S PARADISE LOST |
However what interest me the most
about video essays is that it is the most comprehensive form of art that relies
on other forms of art. Sure, there are video essays that uses first hand
material, but the feel of those video essays then follow closely for a
documentary like format. Video essays, especially argumentative ones cobble up
resources that are made by somebody else. It is in its essence, the modern
video essay is a big “fuck you” to the ridiculous limitations that intellectual
property has imposed.
In his book, “Everything’s A
Remix,” Kirby Ferguson postulates that every single art form comes from
something prior to it. Nothing is purely original. It is a derivative of
something that comes before and innovation is a product of altering something
prior to make a distinct enough product. The example he used was how Walt
Disney was a master of this. His company took stories from the public domain
and made it theirs. In time, their stories are copyrighted by the company and
the claim some degree of ownership to it. Now, instead of attributing these
stories to the original writers to the folklores, pop culture refers moments of
joy as Disney-like.
Video essays take up ideas from
their surroundings and make commentary an art form. Their edits are beautiful
and cinematic but they were not shot by them. They stand on the shoulders of
cinematographers, directors, writers and visual artists. The audio in the
background was written in a studio elsewhere. Commenting on the audio selection
of directors and to take commentary from soundtrack composers encapsulates what
it means to use your surrounding as an art form.
With that, video essays as a
format are something ahead of its time. It’s an art form that comes from
something as mainstream as youtube yet serves like a presentation in a lecture
hall. That my friend, is the future of art.
//
Here are some of my recent favorites that I think has elevated the art form:
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