The video essay is a form of intellectual inquiry presented through film. It particularly draws on written text (often read out aloud by a narrator) that includes an argument, hypothesis or postulate as well as videography. At times, the video essay also foreground sound and the audible domain.
Examples:
‘Ordinary Streets’ is a short film based on an ethnographic and visual exploration of the spaces, economies and cultures of ‘street’. Through the lens of Rye Lane in Peckham in south London, the film engages with issues of migration, urban multiculture and regeneration. This film is made by Sophie Yetton based on research led by Suzanne Hall at LSE Cities at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Screens at times in different places, might also be available via Kanopy (MMU library)
“Patrick Keiller is one of the most innovative and visionary filmmakers in the UK, predominantly thanks to his fascinating, intellectually rigorous films LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, two essay films that rank with Chris Marker’s work among the greatest achievements of the form. Pioneering a heady mix of documentary observation, philosophical musing, and quasi-narrative storytelling, both films are animated by the words of an off-screen narrator who describes the wanderings of an unseen figure named Robinson. Embedding his musings in the perspectives of these dual fictional constructs, and presenting them in the form of travelogues (after the manner of the great German writer W.G. Sebald), Keiller creates complex, provocative, and haunting essays on history, politics, landscape, and time.”
https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/38477