Problem & Design Intent

The challenge was a dual-sided limitation in how culture is often discussed. On the one hand, traditional academic essays are inherently static; they struggle to capture the texture and vibration of nostalgia—a feeling that, in the Internet age, is tied to specific visual and auditory artifacts. On the other hand, while video essays have become ubiquitous online, the approach many creators opt to take often lacks significant scholarly rigor, and frequently prioritizes digestible content over deep theoretical analysis.

My aim was to elevate and reframe video essays as a vessel for scholarly discussions around culture, specifically to answer questions that are often difficult to surmise via the written page: How does digital decay impact our individual and collective memory? How do we mourn a past we never actually lived, but were promised?

Research/Pre-Production

Part of my research process, in addition to reading up on my chosen topic, consisted of studying essays from a variety of channels, to determine a proper structure, as well as common techniques and inspiration for effective edits. The challenge is finding your own unique voice and style among the barrage of similar creators. In addition, I studied various visual motifs and tropes in 80's and 90's media, in order to create a video that can transplant the viewer in a bye-gone era.

The literary research process, as well as creating a script, proved to be the most time-consuming aspect. I wanted to condense the essence of much of online media, as casually as it presents itself, by grounding it in the world of academia. Balance was the keyword: avoid alienating viewers who are unaware, as well as try and draw in those already familiar. Ground my work in the realm of serious research, but illustrate my love for the topic and make it fun.

Development

Given that this video would be an unprecedented undertaking, there were moments early on when I wondered if I was a little in over my head. However, like any project of a larger scope, it is imperative to segment the work into sections and take each one at a time. Doing this would not only put my mind at ease, but would also come to define the work pipeline I followed. I would create a majority of clips in After Effects, including the transitions that would introduce each clip and the last remaining frames of the previous clip. This would then create the seamless feel between sections.

The production phase of this video took place over a span of around 3 weeks. The learning curve to this workflow was steep, as the first week or two of production featured numerous headaches and slow adjustments, with only a few minutes of the finished result to show for. However, the remaining time saw a drastic uptick in output, as my vision for the end result became clearer and I had become adjusted to the process. The final touch I added to the video was the VHS-style overlay and distortion, to further transport the video in the past and give even greater visual cohesion over the span of the video.

Final Video

After months of research, writing, planning, and editing, I was proud to showcase my work at the Honors College's virtual gallery. Hearing such positive feedback from a broad scope of viewers, with varying degrees of familiarity and interests, demonstrated to me the success of my project. Part of conducting this project was to illustrate the effectiveness of a video essay to convey new knowledge, and while I didn't conduct formal testing on this, I gathered from the response that my hypothesis was correct.