Video Versus Traditional Essay – Faith Mitchell

I think video essays do a lot that traditional essays don’t. For instance, traditional essays don’t have the visual component that video essays do. Some people may be visual learners, which video essays, by including images, videos, graphics, audio, sounds, music, etc., are more catered toward. Video essays combine spoken words with visuals to give the audience a better understanding of what would otherwise be a traditional essay. The combination lends itself to helping the viewer make connections between the words they are hearing and what they are seeing, in order to help the creator say things with a video essay that they can’t in a traditional form. The video I took the most notice of was the Nerdwriter1 video “How Marvelman Changed Superheros” and how the creator was able to put the words they were saying into visuals. For example, when talking about the passing of time, they would put up a clock with its hands ticking. Or when talking about publishers having to close their doors, they would put up the name of the company in text and then have the letters gradually disappear until there was nothing left. This put particular emphasis on things the speaker was saying so that the essay was easier to follow along with. In comparison to the “Instagram Activism” article, which was mainly words with the addition of a few images, I found the video essay to be a lot more interesting. I mean, people tend to have shorter attention spans and get bored when just reading a normal essay because it is their own free will that is responsible for making them keep reading, whereas with video essays there are images and other things to interest people and the video is a set time that ticks down, propelling people forward. The movement of the visuals in the Nerdwriter1 video maintained my attention, almost like it tricks the audience into thinking the focus is on the visuals not the words, whereas with traditional essays, the words are clearly the emphasis and any images included are supplementary. By doing this, the video was able to do things and say things that the more traditional “Instagram Activism” article wasn’t. It was able to have a bigger impact.