Film Studies For Free predicted at the beginning of this year that 2010 would be the year of the video essay. And thus it has come to pass... Woohoo!
Audiovisual Thinking -- an online video journal about "audiovisuality, communication and media" -- has just launched and it looks to FSFF to be a very worthwhile venture indeed. All relevant information has been pasted in below to tempt you to the excellent AT website. There are lots of introductory videos embedded there which will inform you audiovisually about the Audiovisual Thinking ethos.
Audiovisual Thinking has issued its first call for videos for its first proper issue which will explore the "legacy and merit of the use of audiovisual material in academic thinking, research and teaching, in the past, present and in the future" (deadline: June 15, 2010; do note: according to the submission form (as of April 22) the videos should be no longer than seven minutes and a maximum of [an as yet quite tiny] 10 Mb [Update: The editors reported to FSFF that they are working on achieving a larger, automated, upload volume. If you have larger submissions, these can be uploaded manually, so just get in touch with the editors via the website's contact page].
If you don't yet completely understand why FSFF is so pleased with this development, you should check out the following propaganda piece that it published last July: Video Essays on Films: A Multiprotagonist Manifesto. Also, do have a peruse of all the video essays embedded at FSFF, including this little one we prepared earlier (sadly, it's just a little longer than seven minutes and larger than 10Mb or 100Mb...).
About Audiovisual Thinking
Audiovisual Thinking is a pioneering forum where academics and educators can articulate, conceptualize and disseminate their research about audiovisuality and audiovisual culture through the medium of video.International in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, the purpose of Audiovisual Thinking is to develop and promote academic thinking in and about all aspects of audiovisuality and audiovisual culture.Advised by a board of leading academics and thinkers in the fields of audiovisuality, communication and the media, the journal seeks to set the standard for academic audiovisual essays now and in the future.Video submissions are welcome from all fields of study and, as one would expect, the main criteria for submissions are that the discussion and thinking are conveyed through audiovisual means.
Audiovisual Thinking IssuesEach issue of Audiovisual Thinking will call for and then showcase academic videos around a specific theme within audiovisual culture and the media. The journal also accepts ‘opinion’ or ‘reflective’ audiovisual pieces on any area of audiovisual research or pedagogy.Submissions are welcome from the areas of the Arts, Journalism, Media and Communication studies, as well as Education and the Social Sciences where audiovisual material is routinely used, or is gaining ground, as an academic research tool or teaching method.
This first issue will explore the legacy of audiovisual content in contemporary academic research and thinking. Submit your video here.
I hope their thinking on the subject is larger than their file size :-)
ReplyDeleteI have been using YouTube to compile a growing collection of video 'mini lectures' from my class, for my class, but the process is VERY time consuming.
See here: http://www.strangelove.com/blog/university-of-ottawa/strangelove-lectures/
You may also be curious to know that my book, Watching YouTube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People (University of Toronto Press) is now available.
Dr. Strangelove
University of Ottawa