Course Description
Video essays are an increasingly popular and accessible form of media criticism, explored and analyzed in podcasts (The Video Essay Podcast) and academic workshops (Scholarship in Sound & Image), and produced by practitioners ranging from professional film editors to scholars to students to fans. In this course, we’ll explore a range of ways to understand and create video essays, from the expository to the poetic and points between. Students will learn the fundamentals of video editing and video essay production, culminating in a final video essay project.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will

• have a working knowledge of how to use video editing software
• think critically about the components and structure of video essays
• be able to communicate your ideas about film and media audiovisually
• understand the role and limitations of US copyright law in creating video essays

Technical Requirements

As we will not be using a classroom equipped with video editing terminals, you must have a computer capable of running one of the following video editing suites: DaVinci Resolve (*preferred – this will be used in instruction)/Adobe Premiere/Final Cut Pro X. DaVinci Resolve is available for free download at the Blackmagicdesign website here; Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro X require purchase. Below are the system requirements for these three video editing suites. If you have a Mac and are unsure whether it can run DaVinci Resolve, you can download Blackmagic RAW Speed Test on the App Store and run it to find out.

System Requirements for Video Editing Software:

DAVINCI RESOLVE 18

Mac:

• macOS 11 Big Sur
• 8 GB of system memory
• Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 12.0 or later
• Integrated GPU or discrete GPU with at least 2 GB of VRAM
• GPU which supports Metal or OpenCL 1.2

Windows:

• Windows 10 Creators Update.
• 16 GB of system memory
• Blackmagic Design Desktop Video 10.4.1 or later
• Integrated GPU or discrete GPU with at least 2 GB of VRAM
• GPU which supports OpenCL 1.2 or CUDA 11
• NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU Driver version – As required by your GPU

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO

Mac (minimum system requirements)

• An Intel 6thGen or newer CPU
• macOs v10.15 (Catalina) or later
• 8 GB of Ram
• 8 GB of unified memory on Apple Silicon GPUs or 2 GB of unified memory on Intel GPUs
• 8 GB of hard disk space for installation (though you’ll need much more than that to actually edit videos on your system)
• 1920 x 1080 display

Windows (minimum system requirements)

• An Intel 6thGen or newer CPU – or an AMD Ryzen 1000 series or newer CPU.
• Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit) version 1909 or later
• 8 GB of Ram
• 2 GB of GPU memory
• 8 GB of hard disk space for installation
• 1920 x 1080 display
• An ASIO-compatible sound card

For more information on Adobe Premiere Pro system requirements, see this article.

FINAL CUT PRO X

Mac ONLY (minimum system requirements)

• macOS 11.5.1 or later
• 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended for 4K editing, 3D titles, and 360° video editing)
• Metal-capable graphics card
• 1GB of VRAM recommended for 4K editing, 3D titles, and 360° video editing¹
• 4.5GB of available disk space