Reflecting on “Gay Pride, Rehab, and Cheerios: A Video Essay”

When we received our assigned groups, and went over the rubric for project four in class, each of us shared the collective feeling of general uneasiness. We had each worked in groups before, that aspect was nothing new, but none of us had worked together on anything this semester especially anything as big as a writing project. We would somehow need to figure out, as four complete different individuals, how to create one cohesive piece. Not only that, we also had to create something that none of us had attempted before. We would somehow have to take an essay off of paper and into a video. We clearly had our work cut out for us. When it is all said and done, this project expanded our ever-changing definition of an essay and brought our perception of the writing form to new levels.

When our motley crew of four got together for the first time, we did not come empty handed. Each team member brought with them their own personal experiences with group projects and respective worries about how this would work out. Of course we had all worked on group projects at some point in our educational lives. We knew pretty much how it worked, which is why there was a tone of uneasiness. We had all been part of a group that didn’t work well. There were fears of work sharing and time management. There was anxiety over how often we would have to meet and how that would interfere with our already packed schedules. Then there was the video itself to worry about. How in the world were we supposed to go about this? Throughout the entire semester, our writing projects had been intimate, personal essays. We never had to think about anyone but ourselves and our individual point of view. That was not the case with this project. We would have to take four minds and work together. We had to cooperate and collaborate throughout each step. This caused some stress.

Our team didn’t let these initial worries hold us down. Soon after we got together and realized our fears, we tightened up as a team and figured out how to overcome them. We decided that the most important aspect of working as a functional group was effective communication. If we could make sure that everyone was on the same page, we could avoid a multitude of issues down the road. We set up a group me and agreed to check it regularly so that we could each stay informed. We then used the group me as the hub of our collaborations instead of physically meeting. By doing this, we could delegate the work that needed to be done quickly, and everyone could do it at his or her own convenience. This proved to work very well. A huge factor of our success as a group was using Google drive. This way, we could each work on separate aspects of the video and could post those separate aspects in a folder that could be accessed by anyone in the group.

After we had our system in place, it was essentially smooth sailing in terms of group dynamic. Each day we would figure out what needed to be done and who would do it. After some discussion, we decided to use Sammy’s essay for our video. This decision was influenced by John Bresland’s article “On the Origin of the Film Essay.” In this piece he says, “I suspect the heart-quickening now of sound and image is what drew the otherwise reclusive Marker to film.” We decided to choose this essay because it appealed to the senses by mentioning sounds of laughter, the sound of the Jonas Brothers, and the look of this imaginary house to name a few. We, as a group, saw the potential in Sammy’s essay and decided to bring it to life with sounds and images. Maggi created and a script from the original piece. From there, Sammy recorded her voice presenting the essay and shared the files as well as several images on the Google folder. Emeli and Corey proceeded to use the audio files and pictures to create two separate first drafts of the video on different editing software. When we met in class, we decided to use Emeli’s as the basis for the final product. From then on, she took the lead on actually putting the video together. She ended up switching from windows moviemaker to iMovie in order to make the layering of audio easier.

What we had at first was okay, but it still didn’t have the transformative aspect that we saw from the video essays we watched in class. In order to make the video more than just a reading, we decided to re-record the audio and add some effects to it. We also incorporate some transitional music and certain sound effects queued off of Sammy’s talking points. For example, we added a sample of “Year 3000” by the Jonas Brothers as she mentions her car ride with Maya to the parade. These effects along with our organized system, allowed us to create a finished video essay.

This project itself presented interesting challenges. It was a struggle at first to nail down exactly what a video essay is. Of the examples shown in class, none really connected to what we were trying to create. The professional videos all had a solemn vibe of gloom with an almost creepy aspect to them. It was difficult at first to figure out how we could use these as a guide to present a happy message. We eventually made it work, but not before some complaining and debating over whether or not the examples shown in class were over doing it with the gloomy sound effects.

Another struggle we found in this project was finding a way to divide up work evenly in a group of four people to complete a project that only requires two or three. This seemed like it may be an issue at first, but we figured out a way to collaborate so that no one felt as if they did not contribute.

To complete this project, we had to look back and reflect about the previous three projects we have written for this class as well as our definition of what an essay is. The concept of a video essay certainly wouldn’t have fit into our original, rigid definition of an essay from day one. It wouldn’t even fit completely with the working definition that our class agreed upon later. We got together as a group and thought about what our current definition of an essay is and how this video essay fits into everything.

We never landed on a solid definition of what an essay truly is. The closest we came to defining this fluid form was calling it a verb. An essay is something that you do. We can’t find one definition that encapsulates the form because there isn’t one. Based on the interpretations from writers in our class, we can definitely see the video essay as being a part of the essay family. Depp states, “the essay has a million forms and that is part of the wonder and freedom of the essay.” After completing this section of the course, this idea has been proven completely true. Lapote mentions, “the core of the personal essay is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience.” That is what every personal essay has in common. They rely on sharing intimate and personal details about the writer and the appeal of the essay itself is the fact that all of us as humans can relate to the experience of emotion. Our video project does exactly that. Sammy presents her feelings and experiences in a very intimate way. This intimacy is what truly makes these projects, essays.

Overall, we all agree that we worked well together as a group. Despite the slightly intimidating start, we pulled together and created a cohesive piece. Sammy spearheaded the project from the start and took ownership of her piece while still allowing us to move some things around and transform it into a video. We all did a good job on collaborating even though we each had our respective roles and assignments in the project. This video came together very nicely and although it is Sammy’s essay originally, we can now take ownership in something that we all collaborated on.

Corey McCarten, Emeli Marroquin, Sammy Moorin, and Maggi McCann