The first post should reflect on the ‘genre’ and form of video explainers. How would you define a video explainer (can we call it a ‘genre’, or does it fit neatly into a ‘genre’)? From the examples we’ve watched in class, what are some of the aesthetics, modes or conventions that stand out to you? Choose an example (from class or your own research) and critically discuss those elements that you think work well/what you would do differently? What elements might you like to include in your individual video explainer (based on your assignment one proposal).
I feel that video explainers can be counted as their very own genre due to the large amount of videos and topics that are being made, but also multiple types of video explainers can be made. While researching video explainers l found that there are all kinds of video explainers – animated, whiteboard, live-action, infographic, etc… From the examples that we watched in class, l found the aesthetics of the videos to be interesting and eye-catching especially the VOX videos as they stuck with me the most. A favourite of mine was the VOX ‘How cruise ships got so big’; shot and edited in a way to keep the audience very interested but having animations and visuals to accompany the information was one of my favourite things about video explainers that l have discovered and would love to try to explore in my video explainer. I discovered that the thumbnails of video explainers have to be very eye-catching as that is what the viewer is most likely going to see first, VOX thumbnails, in particular, are always using some collage or mixed media, sometimes being more bizarre with their video ‘How The Conjuring became the Marvel of Horror’ with the thumbnail being Annabelle’s head photoshopped onto a famous marvel character, leaving the viewer amused or confused leading to clicking onto the video. Something that l found l would change in most that l watched is the pacing, sometimes the pacing can be fast finding it difficult to keep up with the information that is being told to us, l found for my video explainer l want to avoid doing this and want to have a good timing so it flows at a good speed and the information can be understood well by the viewers, and have interesting visuals to accompany the video contents.