Greetings!

Last Friday, The Video Essay Podcast partnered with the Cary Comes Home Festival to present “The Journeys of Cary Grant: An Audiovisual Celebration.” First, thank you so much to Festival Director Charlotte Crofts (Associate Professor of Filmmaking, UWE Bristol) for making this happen!

In July of this year, we put out a call for video essays related to the theme of "journeys", not only in terms of geography, place, space and physical travels (both real life and on film), but also in terms of psychological journeys: voyages of identity, self-discovery and self-invention. The official call for videos read, "We are open to all kinds of journeys, including fan journeys, star pilgrimage, set-jetting, movie location tours and rephotography and all forms of audio-visual criticism, including video essays, fanvids, and any kind of video that reappropriates footage of Cary Grant."

Seven essayists joined Charlotte and me for a live conversation as part of this year’s Cary Comes Home Festival: Ian Magor, Anna Marin, Kendahl Cruver, Cormac Donnelly, Roberto Carlos Ortiz, Ian Garwood, and Philip Brubaker.

Included in the video above is the complete Q&A and all of the videos we had received before November 20, including an additional video by Francesca Sanna. A captioned video of the full event will be available soon.

My main takeaway from our celebration comes in the form of a question: what is it about Cary Grant that makes him an ideal subject for a video essay? Are there some performers that are more suitable for videographic criticism than others? I think the answer is yes. I’ll have to tackle this question more down the line, but in the meantime if you have any thoughts please let me know, and feel free to use the question(s) as a prompt! As always, I’m eager to pass the mic and publish guest essays in this space.

Cheers,

Will

P.S.

The videos screened can also be found here:

We’re still open to adding videos to our showcase and webpage! Read the original call for videos here: carycomeshome.co.uk/events/the-journeys-of-cary-grant-an-audiovisual-celebration

NEW — Episode 20. Nelson Carvajal

A new episode of The Video Essay Podcast was released on Sunday! Nelson Carvajal is a two-time Webby award nominated video artist and television producer. Nelson is also the founder of the website Free Cinema Now. We discuss his video essay/mashup, "If Pride Rock Could Talk" and a supercut by Nicolas Longinotti, "Martin Scorsese: Hands." Watch and listen here.

News & Notes

I need your help curating this section!! Have something that should be featured? Email me: willdigravio@gmail.com

• At the end of each year, video essayists and video essay enthusiasts contribute to the Sight & Sound poll of the year’s “best” work. If you’re unfamiliar with the poll, you can find them all here: 2019; 2018; 2017. In the lead up to this year’s poll, several essayists have gathered their 2020 work in Vimeo showcases. Here are the few I’ve seen. If you’ve made one, please send it in and I’ll be sure to include it in a future newsletter!

  • Catherine Grant

  • Philip Brubaker

  • Ian Garwood

  • Leigh Singer

• David Verdeure (aks Filmscalpel) put together an epic and absolutely essential thread of some of the year’s best videographic work. Check it out:

  Filmscalpel @filmscalpel

  FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. It's the time of year for taking stock, making lists and catching up on things you missed. VIDEO ESSAYS are no exception. Here is a thread of links to notable publications and practitioners, and what they produced in 2020. (Further suggestions welcome!)

  November 24th 2020

  23 Retweets67 Likes

• Learning on Screen is hosting a launch event for their brilliant new resource,“Introductory Guide to Video Essays” on December 14. Join us here.

• Philip Brubaker is teaching an online class on how to make video essays! The cost of the class is $60. 80% of the proceeds will be donated to Fair Fight, the Georgia-based voting rights organization founded by Stacey Abrams. The class is part of an effort organized by Rachel Deane to raise money in the lead up to the U.S. Senate races in Georgia on January 5th. Learn more here.

• "Once Upon a Screen", a collection of video essays on childhood cinematic traumas co-curated by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer, will be published in the upcoming issue of The Cine-Files. The issue is set to be released soon, but in the meantime check out this teaser Ariel made!

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