The Video Essay Podcast

On today's show, Will sits down with John Gibbs, Head of the School of Arts & Communication Design and Professor of Film at the University of Reading, to discuss style-based criticism, his videographic work, and more. They discuss John's video essay, " ‘Say, have you seen the Carioca?’ ," published as part of the AHRC/FAPESP-funded project, " Intermldia: Towards an Intermedial History of Brazi...

Last year, listeners of The Video Essay Podcast were assigned the five videographic exercises developed for the Scholarship in Sound & Image Workshop as "homework." Listeners made more than 60 videos as a response to the homework assignments. Episode 23 features audio reflections from eight listeners who created videographic exercises: Jemma Saunders, Cormac Donnelly, Roberto Carlos Ortiz, Cha...

Today's show is (in part) dedicated to the 2020 Sight & Sound poll of the year's best video essays . Will is joined by the co-curators of the poll, Cydnii Wilde Harris, Grace Lee, and Ariel Avissar to discuss what it was like putting the poll together in the year of quarantine. The episode also features commentary from Oswald Iten, Kevin B. Lee, Shannon Strucci, Thomas Flight, and Scout Tafoya...

Today's episode begins with a special request from Will to the podcast's listeners. The episode features the audio from "The Journeys of Cary Grant: An Audiovisual Celebration," a partnership between the Cary Comes Home Festival and The Video Essay Podcast. In July 2020, we put out a call for video essays related to the theme of "journeys," not only in terms of geograph...

Will sits down with Nelson Carvajal, a two-time Webby award nominated video artist and television producer. Nelson is also the founder of the website Free Cinema Now . We discuss his video essay/mashup, "If Pride Rock Could Talk" and a supercut by Nicolas Longinotti, "Martin Scorsese: Hands." Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_05_Brain...

"Seen & Heard: Selections from the Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist" was a live event recorded as part of the Open City Documentary Festival on September 12, 2020. The event was co-moderated by Cydnii Wilde Harris, Kevin B. Lee, and Will DiGravio, and featured interviews with Jazmin Jones, Professor Flowers, Nzingha Kendall, and Cydnii. Learn more at www.thevideoessay.com/blac...

Cydnii Wilde Harris joins the show to discuss her video essay, "Cotton — The Fabric of Genocide." Cydnii and Will also discuss Ian Garwood's "SLAP THAT BASS Zoomed" and Jace Alexander Casey's "New Forms of Racism in the Post-Cinematic Dispositif." They also talk about what it's like to be a student of videographic criticism and how video essays have shaped...

Will is joined by his former teachers and mentors, Jason Mittell and Christian Keathley, who are professors at Middlebury College, two of the co-founders of [in]Transition, co-conveners of the Scholarship in Sound & Image Workshop, and leading practitioners and teachers of the academic video essay. Our conversation centers on their collaborations, the history and practice of the workshop, aka...

We are finally back! Today's episode is the first of our new roundtable series, which will center on topics related to all aspects of video essays. Will is joined today by Michael Leader of BBC’s Inside Cinema, Adam Woodward of Little White Lies, and Joost Broeren of Filmkrant. We discuss what it's like to edit publications that publish videographic work, tips for freelance video essayists...

Shannon Strucci joins the show to discuss life as a YouTube video essayist, developing one's own video essay aesthetic, the relationship between video essay making and podcasting, and more! We also discuss Shannon's epic video essay "Fake Friends Episode 2: parasocial hell" and Harry S. Plinkett’s (Mike Stoklasa) review of Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace, a seven part video p...

On today's show Will sits down with journalist, programmer, and video essayist Leigh Singer. We discuss his most recent essay, “The Movies Behind Your Favorite GIFS” and kogonada’s 2014 video essay, “Linklater // On Cinema & Time.” Listeners are also given their next homework assignment: videographic epigraphs. Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_0...

We are finally back! On today’s show, Will sits down with Scout Tafoya, aka Honors Zombie. Scout is a prolific video essayist and critic, who regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com among other publications. We dive deep into his essay film Beata Virgo Viscera and “Deep Focus: Mike Figgis’ STORMY MONDAY, as reviewed by Roger Ebert,” a video essay edited by Matt Zoller Seitz, narrated by Kim Morgan...

Liz Green is a scholar, sound professional, and video essayist. On today's show, she and Will discuss her essay, "Do it for Van Gogh: Detecting and Perverting the Audience Position in David Lynch's Blue Velvet." They also discuss Tracy Cox-Stanton's recently released video essay, "Gesture in A Woman Under the Influence." Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music...

Will is joined by his fellow co-editors of the 2019 Sight & Sound magazine poll of the best video essays of the year, Grace Lee (What's So Great About That?) and Ariel Avissar. They discuss what it was like editing the poll, what changed about the poll this year, how they'd like to see the poll evolve in the future, and how they made their own selections. The second half of the show fe...

Filmmaker and critic Charlie Shackleton joins the show to discuss his background, philosophy when it comes to making videographic work, and his most recent essay, "Criticism in the Age of TikTok." In a first for the show, Charlie and Will also discuss a performance piece by Zia Anger, My First Film. Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_05_Brain_Po...

Scholar Johannes Binotto joins the show to discuss his video essays on John Ford's Stagecoach and François Truffaut. He and Will also discuss Hartmut Bitomsky’s 1991 essay film, Das Kino und der Wind und die Photographie (The Cinema and the Wind and Photography). Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_05_Brain_Power

Chloé Galibert-Laîné, one of the leaders in the video essay genre of "desktop documentary" comes on the show to discuss her film, "Watching The Pain of Others." Chloé and Will also discuss Ross Sutherland's 2015 film, "Stand By for Tape Back-Up." Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_05_Brain_Power

Jen Proctor is a video essayist, filmmaker, media artist, and professor at the University of Michigan - Dearborn. On this week's show we discuss the difference between those terms, what a video essay is, and a whole lot more. Jen and Will discuss her found footage film, Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can't Fix, and Martin Arnold's 1988 found footage film, Pièce Touchée. Music via: htt...

We are back! Will DiGravio sits down with Adrian Martin, who discusses his video essays made in collaboration with Cristina Álvarez López. The two discuss their essay, "Only Free Gestures," and Rafael Guilhem's "Traspasos." Learn more at thevideoessay.com. Music via: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two/MELA_-_Mela_Two_-_05_Brain_Power

This week's guest is Grace Lee, who operates the popular video essay channel, What's So Great About That? on YouTube. Grace and host Will DiGravio talk about how Grace's fine art background influences her video essays, what it is like having one's video essay go viral, how to please the YouTube algorithm, and discuss her essay, "Feathered Foes: Birds in Horror." They also...

Will DiGravio sits down with Philip Brubaker, formerly one of the principal video essayists at Fandor. Philip is also an experimental filmmaker with a background in documentary filmmaking and an alumnus of Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School. His video essays have screened at numerous film festivals and his work has appeared regularly in Sight and Sound’s annual list of the best video essays. The tw...

In the first true episode of The Video Essay Podcast, host Will DiGravio sits down with Catherine Grant, one of the leading video essay makers working today. In the episode, the two talk about Katie's first introduction to the form, her philosophy when it comes to making video essays, and her latest video essay, "The Haunting of THE HEADLESS WOMAN." They also discuss "Cotton - T...

In the pilot for "The Video Essay Podcast," host Will DiGravio discusses the show's origins, his background, the format of the podcast, and previews the next episode, which will feature an interview with Catherine Grant. Music via Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Me...