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First-ever book on the video essay
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caboose launches book on videographic criticism and has a half-price sale on the book by Jean-Luc Godard
Montreal, 13 May 2016—caboose is pleased to announce the release of the ninth volume in its innovative Kino-Agora series of short essays, The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound and Image, by Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell, with contributions by leading figures in this exciting new field of film studies and video production, Eric Faden, Catherine Grant and Kevin B. Lee. This 64-page volume, the first-ever book on the art and essay form known as the ‘video essay’, sells for $5 directly from caboose or for $8 on Amazon, where a Kindle version can also be purchased for $4. The last decade has seen extraordinary developments in the multimedia presentation of cinema and moving image scholarship via videographic criticism. The finest examples of this videographic criticism show that such work allows for and even demands a different rhetoric than written film scholarship, which can in turn transform how we engage with and study cinematic texts. The contributors to the present volume combine a theoretical and a practical perspective to this new field, discussing some of the formal and theoretical issues raised by the video essay with special focus on the practice and pedagogy of videographic production. All of the book’s contributors took part in a an NEH-funded workshop, ‘Scholarship in Sound and Image’, organised by Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell at Middlebury College in Vermont in the summer of 2015, where fourteen international scholars gathered to experiment with the new form. The volume contains detailed descriptions of the assignments that were designed to both stimulate work and teach technology. A companion page on the caboose web site features the videos produced by participants during the workshop, along with a video essay by contributor Catherine Grant discussed at length in the book. This unique volume will be of great value to teachers, students, critics and video makers, as well as anyone interested in this growing area of critical practice. The volume also addresses issues such as the professional validation of videographic work, copyright and fair use, and technology. Richard Misek of the University of Kent describes the new Kino-Agora volume The Videographic Essay as ‘a must-read for all scholars, teachers and video makers interested in using moving images to understand moving images. The book not only forms a blueprint for how to develop skills in videographic essay production, but also provides a window into the future of film and media studies as a discipline. Including essential creative and practical advice by leading practitioners in the field, the book is sure to play a key role in the advancement of this exciting new approach to film and media studies’. The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound and Image is a perfect introduction to viewing, making and teaching work in this fast-growing and exciting new field. Half-price Godard! You can also obtain a free copy of The Videographic Essay, or of any other title in the Kino-Agora series, with the purchase of caboose’s landmark new edition and translation of Jean-Luc Godard’s monumental Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television. This universally-acclaimed, 558-page record of Godard’s 1978 talks on film history in Montreal, available exclusively from caboose, is on sale for the rest of the month of May 2016 only for half the regular price, or $25. The caboose edition of Godard’s book, long unavailable in French and never before translated into English, incorporates countless corrections and additions to the French edition, alongside 84 full-page images from the original edition and an essay by Godard scholar Michael Witt on the evolution of Godard’s film history project, culminating in the film Histoire(s) du cinéma. Cinephiles and film scholars of every description need to read this essential book, and at the give-away price of $25 with a free Kino-Agora volume your summer reading is now set. Forthcoming titles from caboose: Reading with Filmmakers and Montage-Découpage-Mise en scène In 2017 caboose will launch its unique collaborative series Reading with Filmmakers with the first two volumes in the series, Reading with Jean-Luc Godard and Reading with Sergei Eisenstein. Dozens of leading scholars are contributing 1000-word mini-essays on the books and authors that influenced the work and thought of these two towering figures in cinema and film theory. Sample entries from the Godard volume, on Robert Bresson and Edgar Allan Poe, are available on the caboose site, handsomely laid out as they will appear in the final book. You can also take a virtual tour of Eisenstein’s library on the caboose site, with photographs of some of his books and their marginalia in Eisenstein’s hand. Work on volumes on Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel in this unique series is also now underway. Also coming in 2017 is an anthology of essential essays on the theory and practice of the three fundamental categories of film aesthetics: montage, découpage and mise en scène. Written by Laurent Le Forestier, Timothy Barnard and Frank Kessler, Montage, Découpage, Mise en scène: Essays on Film Form will shine new light on the history of these practices and their place in film theory and criticism today. The essay on Mise en scène by German film historian Frank Kessler and that on Découpage by caboose proprietor Timothy Barnard are also currently available as titles in the Kino-Agora series, while the essay on Montage by French film historian Laurent Le Forestier is currently being written especially for this project. Their anthology will set a new standard for the historical and theoretical discussion of film form and aesthetics and will become a classroom staple in the field. Be sure to visit the caboose site for other features, including Planetary Projection, profiling film projectionists at work around the world today – new submissions are welcome! – and to sign up to our mailing list for news of future publications. caboose |