This exercise asks video essayists to speculate on the potential taste and smell of your media objects: what might manifest?

Download the pdf.

Watch taste and smell exercise examples here.

Prompt: Particular smells and tastes have the potential to unlock memories. How might these senses contribute to our analysis of our media objects? How can these tangible and visceral experiences be communicated in audiovisual form? Select an excerpt from your media object(s) that manifest a smell or taste for you. Add additional footage of any kind and from any source to make the experience of taste or smell apparent for your audience. Use any video essay techniques at your disposal and based on your experience. Work in groups of 3 to rehearse your ideas and help each other.

Consider: What does your media object taste like? What does your media object smell like? Why are you drawn to a particular scene or excerpt from your media object? What does it evoke in relation to smell and or taste?  How/will you create a visceral experience for your audience that communicates your analysis of or engagement with smell and taste? How does the absence of taste and smell for the viewer be used to amplify, exaggerate, and otherwise communicate these senses purely in audiovisual form?

Restrictions

• 30 seconds to 1-minute.
• Use any video essay techniques at your disposal and based on your experience.

This exercise was devised by Dayna McLeod. It was commissioned by ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop hosted at Bowdoin College, July 2023, a collaboration between The University of British Columbia, Bowdoin College, University of Leeds, University of Rochester, and the University of St. Andrews, which was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connection grant.