As I was brainstorming my experimental multi-modal piece, I stumbled across an iPhone app, Clips, that allows the user to splice short clips of video together in real time. I’d been inspired by hand-drawn videos like this, so I was excited to find a quick-and-easy route to achieving a roughly similar result. Although the app also has fun features like captions and stickers, I opted for a more streamlined approach for this mini-piece. For this piece, I chose to combine image and text with no sound; that is, no sound other than the ambient noise from my apartment that I couldn’t figure out how to remove. I’d take more care in the future to get a consistent shot, but the image drives the narrative because since there’s no sound, the viewer is beholden to the words appearing on the screen to understand the meaning of the sentence. Additionally, I tried using expressive handwritten “fonts” and visual enhancements for emphasis on certain words (e.g. “so,” “finally,” and “spring”).
Using handwritten words in video opens up room for a creator to visually interpret a text based upon what it means to them. For example, if I were to teach a novel through a reader-response lens, I might encourage students to use Clips or similar apps to create video reactions to key moments in the text. Students could either make short videos of themselves reacting verbally to the text or do something similar to the example above. Either way, this visual style allows for more student creativity and multiple forms of expression and reaction.
I’m not sure if this app (or a similar one) is available for Android, but for those students who own iPhones, I would encourage them to experiment with this app to create a text focused on a social justice issue. Since short thirty-second videos are easily uploaded to YouTube, I think Clips would be a great avenue for students to experiment with form and develop their voice as advocates. It’s also very intuitive, so students would not need advanced knowledge of video editing to be able to use the platform productively.
Get Lit(erate) 
Caitlin, I love the ideas you share with this post. Hand drawings are amazing, and I think they are cool. I wish I could draw, so I could do more things with hand drawing videos. I see them as great teaching tools. Yet, watching your video showed me that it doesn’t have to be something super complex. I can create something that is artistically complex like you have done with adding flash to your hand written words. I also appreciate that you shared the link to the app you used to create your video. The website has nice graphics with tons of details about what the app has to offer its users. I agree that it appears to be super easy to utilize, but I think it is better that there isn’t much editing, so that the students can focus their energy on creating something worth sharing with the world. Silent films also have something to say, which can be attributed to the lack of verbalization.
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