After roughly a decade of development video essays are now accepted forms for teaching, assessing and research in the wider film and media community. Groups, both ad-hoc and more formalised, now exist in Europe, the UK and North America, and there are regular events, cfp’s, debates and discussions with most recently a Discord channel formed with 250 members. On that same channel at the end of 2022 a brief post lamented the Euro-American bent of video essay discourse. It seems timely then for all of us teaching with, creating or simply interested in video essays in this part of the world to make ourselves seen and heard.

The Video Essay SIG aims to create visibility for the video essay community in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, to provide a space for connections and to develop opportunities for collaboration.

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Introducing the Convenors:

Catherine Fowler

catherine.fowler@otago.ac.nz

I teach at Otago University and have been interested in video essays since about 2015. As a skill-less newbie I was fortunate enough to work with a team using video essays to present eye tracking research. The result was the video ‘Dead Time’ with Claire Perkins and Andrea Rassell. Inspired by the experience, I worked with colleagues to incorporate video essays as assessment tasks into my teaching beginning in 2019. Currently our first year students make a Videographic Epigraph and our third years have the option of Desktop Documentaries. The results have been very rewarding and inspiring for all concerned. Being involved with ‘Not another brick in the wall – teaching and research the audio-visual essay’ a symposium at Monash University abutting the 2018 SSAAANZ conference was the next step towards this proposal. The encounter included over two dozen Australian and New Zealand colleagues talking about their work. Skilled up, my first sole authored video essay, focusing on representations of harassment and abuse in tv series will be published in [in]transition. 5 years on from the Monash symposium, with the international scene increasingly crowded with interest, more co-ordination, to create gatherings and ensure visibility seems urgent.

Arezou Zalipour

arezou.zalipour@aut.ac.nz

I teach screen production, both documentary and drama and use video essays as teaching/learning and assessment strategies. My research focuses on the intersections of culture, screen storytelling and diversity in screen production, practice and industry. I intend to use various dissemination strategies and new forms of scholarship and publishing, including video essay and/or video-graphic criticism as well as research outputs that arise from application of distinctive methodologies of screen practice as research. One example of using screen practice as research methodology is the short documentary entitled Shama (2022), which I directed, produced and co-edited to explore community and collaborative production strategies. Not only has Shama been selected for five international film festivals, won two Best Women Empowerment Film awards, and received a public screening, but also an article based on this project is in press with Journal of Media Practice. My project ‘Seven axes of diversity discourse in NZ film practice, industries and audiences’ gave me an opportunity to reflect on my industry work as member of New Zealand Film Commission’s ‘Diversity and Inclusion Industry Leadership Group’ for the development and implementation of New Zealand’s first diversity and inclusion screen policy ‘He Ara Whakaurunga Kanorau’ (published in 2022). Similarly, a video essay Pushing racial diversity forward in filmmaking: What’s at stake? exhibited in the 34 Flow Virtual Cinema, allowed me to provide a snapshot of the diffusion of diversity discourses in film industries. Among other projects, currently, I am making a video essay for the upcoming Sightlines festival and also working with a multi-award winning German-South African director-writer on a NZ-German co-production drama.

I enthusiastically embrace the idea of establishing the SIG-Video Essay across Australia and New Zealand as it will provide excellent visibility and collaborative opportunities for anyone interested in video essay work.

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We hope to have an initial meeting in July 2023, exact date to be determined. More information to follow.

We need your input and involvement in the survey/database that accompanies this proposal.

This is the link: https://forms.office.com/r/cPTB5X91L8

In this survey, we want to know:

What do you want the SIG to do?

Examples of activities could include (and we can’t wait to hear of others):

• Provide a space for regular meetings
• Strategies for making our work visible
• Organise different level workshops for skills

Here are some examples of possible goals for 2023:

June-October – CONNECT

• Video Essay SIG regular webinars
• Work in progress presentations
• Discussion of issues and debates
• Examples of teaching with the video essay
• Screenings

November/December – RAISE VISIBILITY

• Symposium/live screening event
• Organise screenings
• Collaborate with international colleagues
• Lobby for video essay competitions, festivals, awards (e.g. at ATOM)