Video Essays

Firstly, you will choose two elements out of the lists of codes and conventions. You are then going to create a video essay that analyses your two elements using one, or two, sequences from the film Okja.

Once you have selected which sequences you are going to analyse, you should write a script that will be your voiceover for the video essay. The completed video essay should be between 3 and 5 minutes, so your script doesn't need to be longer than perhaps 300 or so words, as you won't want to be speaking for the entire video, but will leave gaps so scenes you're analysing can be watched by the audience and they can then listen to your analysis.

To the right are two example video essays I created previously. The top one analyses editing in some sequences out of the film Predestination. It will give you an idea of how you might structure your video essay, give you a few ideas on the sort of content and visual approach you can include and it also covers basic information about answering questions in SACs and exams, so is worth a watch for the content too.

The bottom one is a video essay about the look and style of Tim Burton films and is a different way of structuring a video essay.

Who's Doing What?

Story Conventions

Narrative Structure - Gid
Cause and Effect - Rikki
Character Construction - Ellie & Dion
Point of View - Bailey & Jordan

Technical Codes
Camera - Bailey
Audio - Ellie
Lighting - Brendan
Editing - Jordan

Symbolic Codes
Colour -
Acting - Gid
Mise-en-scene - Dion
Setting - Brendan

Check List (each student should have two elements)

Gid - Narrative Structure & Acting
Daniel - Colour & Camera
Brendan - Lighting & Setting
Ellie - Character Construction & Audio
Dion - Character Construction & Mise-en-scene
Jordan - Editing & Point of View
Bailey - Point of View & Camera
Rikki - Cause and Effect & Audio