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If you do not know what a video essay exactly is, think of a regular essay with music and visuals. Graduating has never been easy for students, but graduating in 2024 has come with its own set of challenges. In the age of the internet and YouTube, video essays have become highly popular as a mainstream method of expressing ideas.
Shift eLearning tells us that the visuals enhance the efficiency of the learning process by 400%. They affect the learners on a cognitive basis and stimulate their imagination. Also, as Gitnux tells us, the retention rate of visual learners is 60% higher than that of other learners, and 65% of the general population consists of visual learners.
As you embark on the journey of exploring visual learning via a video essay, you have to bring sharp focus to the content and visuals of your work. Students usually struggle to meet the subtle requirements of this enriched learning method. In this blog, we have provided tips on crafting a compelling short video essay for a YouTube audience.
However, when you do not understand a single thing about the concept, it would be better to get help from a video essayist or a professional essay writing service. They have increased media literacy and can write captivating video essays to entertain YouTube audiences.
Before moving to the guidelines and related information, let us start with the definition of the video essay.
What Is a Video Essay?
The University of Nottingham defines a video essay as the equivalent of a textual essay but in the audio-visual form. Students need to follow the principles of a written essay while writing these papers, and they should research, plan, develop the key points, and convey their ideas.
It also allows students to communicate effectively in a variety of ways and develops their digital skills whilst focusing on the academic abilities they have.
How Do You Write a YouTube Video Essay?
While some students may be familiar with the idea of filming for academic essays, editing and uploading such essays may not be a skill set they might have acquired. Making video essays for the first time may be challenging for some students. So, to familiarise yourself with the format, you should watch a couple of examples first.
The guidelines that you need to follow for crafting such essays are the following:
1. Choose Your Target Audience
As you are spending a lot of budgets and investing your time in making the best Video Essay for YouTube, there should be a domain of a specific audience that your video speaks to. Think about the purpose of your video. If it is about brand awareness, you will have to engage a diverse and large audience. The audience of your work depends on a lot of factors, such as the following:
- The length of your video plus the format
- The platforms you use for posting your video
- The lighting, costumes, and the setting of your work
If your video essays are for customer or employee retention, you will have to review testimonials and data on the services before you start writing your brief for the video.
2. Set Goals for Your Video Script
So, what are your goals for the video script that you have written? Take your video as a team project and ask the other members of your team about the ideas that can make your work more engaging for the audience. Before jumping into a storyline or the setting of a writing project, figure out the goals of your work.
Then, use the aims of your work to decide the metrics you will use to boost the performance of your video essay. Remember that your video also has to do well with the audience; otherwise, it will be a failed project.
3. Pick the Main Character for Your Video
Video marketing is particularly helpful when you show the audience what the subject of your work can do instead of just telling them about it. Choose the main character for your video even before you begin telling the story in your papers. Even before writing the script for your essay, pick the main character for your work. Then, outline the main characters and enlist their quirks, habits, and voices to instill life in the picture you have painted in front of your audience.
Do you want to include the backstory of the main character in your video? Are you planning to talk about the specific experiences of those characters and how they shaped their behaviors?
Once you figure out your main character, you shall have to make it interesting for the readers – as much as you can. A famous essayist Catherine Grant says that it is all about the tools you use for the analysis, teaching and learning of different audio-visual themes.
4. Establish a Thesis for Your Work
The video analysis essays usually begin with a thesis. A thesis is simply an idea, theme, point or claim that your essay supports. It also involves the exploration of different genres of art in the essay you craft. The thesis of your video shall be at the heart of your work and should be what binds your video together.
The thesis is what your whole written essay revolves around; therefore, having a clear idea about it is necessary for you. To do this, review some of your favorite videos on the analysis of let’s say video games and discover the thesis of the work.
5. Use the Existing Interviews
A key determinant of the quality of a written essay is the source of all its ideas and arguments. A very common source for successful video essays is the repository of already existing interviews. Utilizing first-hand interviews is a great way to enhance the content quality of your video essay for YouTube.
You can also watch the interviews of successful digital essayists, such as Johannes Binotto, to understand how they craft the highly watched visual essay videos.
Video Essay Examples
Per the list of best video essays of 2020 given by Polygon, here are a few examples of such essays to watch to perfect your subject matter for the YouTube channel. The list of the most successful visual essays for YouTube is mentioned here:
- “The Satirical Resurgence Of Reefer Madness,” written by Yhara Zayd
- “In Search Of Flat Earth,” created by Dan Olson
- “The Anatomy Of Stan Culture,” made by Elexus Jionde
- “The Strange Reality Of Roller Coaster Tycoon,” crafted by Jacob Geller
- “Cats! And The Weird Mind of TS Eliot,” created by Maggie Mae Fish
You can also contact expert essay writers to get the best long video essay ideas per your subject. They can also help you with the development of your arguments for the work and assist you in structuring your work per your needs.
6. Make a Brief
Writing a brief for your essay allows you to document the answers to the most important project questions. It shall let your audience understand the who, when, what, where, and why of your work. You need to remember that the brief does not have to be so fancy or written according to some perfect formula.
Also, address these questions in the brief you write for your video essay:
- What is the topic for your essay video?
- What is your call-to-action strategy? What do you want your viewers to do once they are done with the practices of viewing your work?
- What are the key takeaways from your video essay on YouTube?
You can easily write such a brief in MS Word or Google Docs to serve as a template for your work. You can always revise your template later to finalize it or make any changes to it.
7. Craft an Outline
Next, you can use your brief to craft an outline for your best YouTube video essays. Starting with an outline helps you give structure to the script of your word essay and, consequently, the video.
Start with an introduction that has a hook to draw your viewers into watching the video. Bring a pain point, a problem, or any other issue that you want to raise in your work. Lastly, it finishes off with a conclusion that also calls to action for the viewers. Remember that you shall have to craft your video script in a manner that maintains the attention spans of your viewers.
8. Start Writing the Sections of Your Script
Again, your video does not have to be fancy if you want it to perform well in the targeted audience. However, if you are working in the context of pop culture, you may use fancy backdrops and themes in your video essays.
A word essay, however, shall be written in a way that is interactive for the readers. Keep it conversational for the people and add dialogue, humor, and inflection in the essay wherever necessary. Also, write every single word of your script; otherwise, you might forget what you had to say in a particular part of your video later.
9. Do the Final Editing
Here, you can shape and structure the essay according to the script and storyboard that you have developed so far. You shall decide what to alter, change, and adapt to in your video at this step. Check to see if you need to make any changes to the script of your video or improve the quality of the visuals.
Give yourself a break for some time, and get back to the script when you feel like editing it. It shall improve your efficiency at work and also increase the quality of your essay.
10. The Final Practise
Now that you have written your script and have made the final changes, it is time to practice thoroughly in front of the camera. You will bring your script to life on the camera in the final practice. Wondering why this is necessary? Well, it is because some words look easy on paper, but once you read them out loud, something about them does not sit well.
So, before publishing your essay on YouTube, you should read the script out loud and fine-tune it wherever you feel the need for it.
How Long Should a YouTube Video Essay Be?
The length of a YouTube video essay depends on the word count of your written essay. The Creative Arts Toolkit suggests several ways to measure this. For a 1500-2000 words essay, the video essay shall be 8-10 minutes long. For a 2000-2500 words essay, the video shall be 10-15 minutes in length. If you want to make it 15-20 minutes long, the word count for your essay shall be 4000-6000.
What Is the Difference Between a Video Essay and a Regular Essay?
The format of writing and the medium of expressing your thoughts is different in both essays. The video essays have the same sections as an essay, such as an introduction, key arguments, discussion, and conclusion.
The steps taken for making such a video are also similar to that of a written essay, and those are listed here:
- The planning
- The preparation of content
- Researching the data
- Writing the script
- Editing the written script
- Submission of the final video
The length of the word count of the written data determines the length of a YouTube video essay. The more the word count, the more the length of your work.
What Are the Benefits of Video Essays?
There are many benefits to making video essays. By the application of their video graphic skills, students can improve their expertise in this domain and bring more helpful agents of change. Such essays are helpful when it comes to the integration of community voices into the teaching methods and finding effective solutions.
Conclusion
Understanding the statistics of visual learners is a key component in optimizing your YouTube video essay. Visual learning is very important for your audience’s knowledge retention and helps them digest complex information easily. We live in an era dominated by screens, and visuals are paramount in the learning processes of the masses.
To augment the learning capability of your readers, it’s recommended to seek help from the best essay writing service UK which understands the importance of writing relevant data in a catchy way for your audience. They can bring your performance of research to life through visual effects and also put forward your persona as a digital essayist.
