Each year critics are asked to name their top choices for best video essay of the year, and the results are published by Sight & Sound magazine. I missed it when the results came out back in December, but among those named for 2025 was the interactive version of my latest book on James Whale’s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, which was selected by Kevin L. Ferguson.
The book is a minute-by-minute engagement with the film, and the interactive adaptation plays the film in 60-second loops that can be inspected alongside the text for the corresponding minute. The software (for Windows and Mac) can be downloaded for free here.
While not technically a video essay, I do conceive of the book (both in print and interactive versions) as engaging in what can be called “videographic methods” that are closely aligned, both materially-technologically and intellectually, with videographic works in the stricter sense. I am both pleased and honored that Kevin Ferguson recognized this!
Also available is a more all-purpose app, the film|minutes video|graphic workstation, which can be used for both reading and writing such close analyses of films and other moving-image media. The workstation is available, also for both Windows and Mac, here.