The Cary Comes Home Festival, in partnership with The Video Essay Podcast

The Sixth Cary Comes Home Festival focuses on Cary Grant as an acrobat. Cary Grant, born Archibald Leach in Bristol in 1904, trained as an acrobat with the Pender Troupe of Knockabout boys. This acrobatic training is evident in his physical onscreen performances in some of his best-loved films, from pratfalls and tumbles in Bringing Up Baby to dodging a crop-duster in North by Northwest. To celebrate the 120th anniversary of his birth, we invite you to submit video essays on the theme of Cary Grant as an acrobat.

We want to explore Cary Grant as a showman, from his training as an acrobat and apprenticeship on the vaudeville circuit and Broadway to how this is evidenced in his physical on-screen performances. We encourage submissions that explore the following themes, but we’re very open to other interpretations:

• "The Greatest Show on Earth": An exploration of circus and performance, focusing on the impact of Grant's acrobatic training on his film career.
• "Slapstick Prince-Charming": Inspired by Pauline Kael’s description of Grant, this theme could focus on his screwball comedies
• Leading Ladies, explore how his co-stars interact with his physical performances and their own physicality on screen, such as Katharine Hepburn’s athleticism.
• Early Influences and Comedy Legacy: Drawing on the silent films Archie Leach watched in Bristol cinemas as a boy and examining how these early influences shaped his comedic style. And how do Cary Grant’s performances impact other filmmakers?
• The Art of Cary Grant – In Action: thinking about his physical prowess and how he performed some of his own stunts
• Movement and Performance: examining the way he moves, from his facial expressions and gestures to the way he walked, his grace and style

Video essays should be between 5 and 20 minutes in length and submitted by Friday 19 November 2024. Selected essays will be featured during our festival from November 29 to December 1, 2024.

But you don’t have to make a full blown video essay!

In attempt to encourage those with varying levels of video editing proficiency, we will also accept submissions of Videographic PechaKuchas. What is a PechaKucha? Developed by Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell, a PechaKucha is an exercise designed for video essay beginners. It’s simple: select a Cary Grant film, choose ten clips from the film of exactly six seconds each, pair them with one minute of continuous audio, and then you have a mini, one-minute video essay! You can find dozens of examples here.

We will then take the submitted PechaKuchas (you’re welcome to submit more than one, or a PechaKucha and a video essay!) and edit them into one long supercut dedicated to the acrobatics of Cary Grant. 

Please submit your entries join us in celebrating the life and legacy of Cary Grant through his remarkable physicality and showmanship.

Guidelines

We are open to all forms of audio-visual criticism, including video essays, fanvids, and any kind of video that reappropriates footage of Cary Grant.

Videos of any length will be accepted but the ideal length will be between 5-6 minutes.

All submitted work will be featured on the Cary Comes Home website and on The Video Essay Podcast website. Some of the best work will be featured on an episode of The Video Essay Podcast which will be recorded live at the virtual festival in November. Creators will be invited to join the conversation.

Please add “For Study Purposes Only” at the end of the video, include a list of the sources of clips used, any references cited and ideally, if you want to use a backing track, please only use copyright-free music for that purpose. If you use copyrighted music, we may not be able to feature your work at the festival.

You will need to upload to your own Vimeo page. Learn more about uploading in their Video Guidelines, Compression Guidelines, and Help Center.

If you are new to making video essays you might want to check out the series of videographic exercises listeners were assigned as “homework” on The Video Essay Podcast, here.

Rolling Deadline until: Friday 19 November 2024

We’ll begin to post submissions to the website from September.

Cary Comes Home is a biennial festival which aims to celebrate Cary Grant’s Bristol roots, develop new audiences for his work and recreate the golden age of cinema-going, directed by Dr Charlotte Crofts (Associate Professor of Filmmaking, UWE Bristol). The festival will take place online this year, 29 November – 1 December 2024. Learn more at www.carycomeshome.co.uk

The Video Essay Podcast, hosted by Will DiGravio, features interviews with critics, scholars, filmmakers, and other leading creators of videographic criticism. The show is accompanied by a weekly newsletter, ‘Notes on Videographic Criticism,’ which features original essays, interviews, and links to events and news related to the form. Learn more at www.thevideoessay.com.