Books
In spite of their limited length, video essays have been the subject of some long writing. Here are some book-length explorations of this format, its practitioners and its strategies.
The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound and Image (Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell)
This particular book is the result of ‘Scholarship in Sound and Image’ – a 2015 workshop around the audiovisual essay. For that reason, it focusses primarily on the practice and pedagogy of making video essays. In addition to the main text, it also features contributions by some of the foremost practitioners of the genre who attended the workshop: Eric Faden, Catherine Grant and Kevin B. Lee.
Order the book online.
The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy (Christian Keathley, Jason Mittell, and Catherine Grant)
The book mentioned above has morphed into an online initiative. This open access site is a great example of multimodal scholarship, as it is a collection not only of writings about and videographic criticism but also has many examples of the form.
Visit this evolving project here.
Film Studies In Motion (Thomas van den Berg and Miklós Kiss)
The online book FILM STUDIES IN MOTION: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video looks at the video essay from a wide variety of angles. From its history to its future, from notable practitioners to best practices.
Read the complete book online.
Farocki / Godard: Film as Theory (Volker Pantenburg)
Can abstract theory be expressed in concrete images? This book focusses on the efforts of Jean-Luc Godard and Harun Farocki to achieve just that: to use the capacities of film to craft works that can rival the theoretical abstraction of written texts.
Read or download this open access book online for free.
Video Ensayo (Mihaela Radulescu, Milagro Farfán, José Sarmiento)
This Spanish language electronic book originated from the Arts and Design faculty at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
Read the book online.