What is a “video essay”?

My favourite type of video to make (and watch) is the video essay. (Above are ~50 of my favourites.) But if you’re wondering what I’m talking about when I say “video essay”, hopefully this article will help:

What is a video essay?

Wikipedia says: “A video essay is a piece of video content that, much like a written essay, advances an argument”. I think that’s a pretty good place to start.

A slightly broader definition might be, “a short factual film often driven by voice-over.” As I explain below, video essays are kind of a mix: the older genres of broadcast news reports and documentary colliding with the culture of YouTube.

“Essay”? Sounds like schoolwork

I agree that the word “essay” probably isn’t ideal because it’s associated with school and fussy stylistic rules about how to write.

However it’s worth knowing the original idea of an “essay” was very different. In Sarah Bakewell’s beautiful biography of Michel de Montaigne, the French writer whose essais popularised this genre of writing, she explains that for Montaigne, the idea of an essay was that it didn’t have any rules. The word meant “trial” or “attempt”.

Montaigne’s writing was a jumbled mix of history, observation and anecdote and felt full of experimentation. He wrote at various lengths, and on a wide range of things (topics included inequality, idleness, sleep, cannibals, and thumbs). Just look at this list of topics from his Wikipedia page:

Aren’t video essays about films?

Yes, “video essays” are often associated with films because that was the first topic this style of video focused on and it’s still really popular. (The BFI has done great lists for 2019, 2018 and 2017 which I recommend checking out.)

But today people make video essays about all sorts of topics. A good example is someone like YouTuber Evan Puschak, one of first people I noticed using the phrase “video essays”. He often makes video essays (beautifully) about films but has also covered topics like design, music, and Donald Trump.

How are video essays different to explainers?

I love explainers and some of my favourite publishers often describe what they makes as “explainers”. Vox’s tagline for example is, “Explain the news”, and there are a number of popular YouTubers who often use this approach (e.g. CGP Grey’s “The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained”).

Another advantage of explainers is that the idea of making them is very attractive to journalists and when I’m encouraging news organisations to make original content for online, this is one of the easier genres to sell. I think this is because explainers feel very “public service” and journalists are often clever people who love explaining things to people.

However I feel that for explainers to be successful they have to do a lot more than just explain. After all, if people really need information often they can get it faster by reading text. The best explainer makers are usually adding something else — personality, humour, argument, suspense — to make them appealing. (Certainly that’s true for Vox and CGP Grey.) I like the word “video essay” because it’s a bit vaguer and so keeps the possibilities open a bit.

How are video essays different to documentaries?

To my mind documentaries tend to be about finding compelling stories and characters, and (as someone once said to me) they’re about raising questions rather than giving answers. They document and observe rather than argue. (Though there are wonderful exceptions — Adam Curtis, Orson Welles, and Michael Moore for example.)

I feel like video essays often are trying to give answers — or at least an answer. Along the way they might tell stories, explain things, or report what’s happening but it often adds up to a wider argument.

But I don’t want to prescriptive about this. What I love about the genre is the sense of freedom and variety.

How new is it?

The audience interest in arguments and opinion is longstanding — just look at newspapers. But video doing this does feel quite new.

I think that’s something to do with the traditions of impartiality in broadcasting and the fact that films had to be — until recently — produced by large groups of people and that tended to push the genre away from strong individual voices.

So I see this as a new genre but one based on a longstanding sensibility, and one that borrows from other genres of video including documentaries, explainers, news reports, adverts and the world of educational YouTube.

Is there a particular style?

Video essays come in a huge range of styles. One thing that tends to unite the genre is the use of voice-over, but otherwise they vary a lot in length, visual style and topic.

They seem quite a small niche

Yes it’s true that videos essays are not widely known about in traditional television, where the genres of documentary and news reporting continue to dominate. However the success of YouTubers in this area, as well as projects like The New York Times video strands, Vox, and BBC Ideas indicate that traditional broadcasters are starting to recognise the audience interest in this genre. I believe there’s a huge potential audience interest — we just need to encourage publishers to move on from the traditional genres of television!

Hi, my name is Brendan Miller, thank you for reading. I’m a filmmaker that specialises in explainers, video essays and social video formats. (You can see the kind of thing I do here: brendanmiller.co.uk) I also lead masterclasses and training sessions on social media video if you’re looking to improve the videos you make for platforms like YouTube or Facebook.

This article first appeared in my email newsletter where I talk about video, creativity and the world of online media. You can sign up here. I’m on Twitter at @brenkjm and Instagram here.