Ariel Avissar

The "[TV Dictionary](https://vimeo.com/showcase/8660446)" is a
collaborative collection of videos premised on a simple prompt: each
video attempts to capture the essence of a television series using a
single word, by juxtaposing the dictionary definition(s) of that word
with a clip or several clips from the series. It is currently comprised
of 48 videos by 25 makers, and has been warmly embraced by the academic
videographic community, receiving numerous mentions on [Sight & Sound's
poll for the best video essays of
2021](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-video-essays-2021),
with many others expressing an interest in making their own entries or
in applying the prompt as part of their teaching.

While the prompt itself is quite simple, the various videos in the
collection have responded to it in very different ways, applying a
diverse range of formal and stylistic choices, at times sombre, at times
playful; at times adopting the tone and language of the chosen series,
at times deconstructing or subverting them. Some of the contributors are
well-established videographic practitioners, who welcomed the
opportunity to apply this new perspective on their own objects of
research and fandom, in some cases incorporating their entries as part
of their broader videographic and theoretical projects; for others,
scholars and fans of television, this was a first dabble in videographic
criticism, one that will hopefully lead to further experimentation with
the form.

In this blog post, the first in a series of posts about the TV
Dictionary, I offer a few examples of my own entries, to illustrate
something of the range of possibilities enabled by its underlying
prompt. Subsequent posts will be written by other contributors, who will
showcase and discuss their own work, exemplifying the diverse ways in
which these possibilities can be explored and developed further.

Many of my own entries -- and indeed, many of the entries in the
collection as a whole -- consist of one, unedited sequence taken from
the series, over which various dictionary definitions are placed as a
simple epigraphic text, such as this entry on *Lost*:

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Or this one on *The Wire* (in which the word itself is only revealed at
the end of the video):

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In the case of this next entry, I opted to use *Dexter*'s unforgettable
opening title sequence, and employ a somewhat more flexible and rhythmic
interaction between text and image (mimicking the placement of the
subtitles in the original title sequence):

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Other entries, rather than settle for a single sequence, edit together
several clips from various episodes of a series, as I did in my entry on
*BoJack Horseman*, which incorporates memorable ending scenes from
almost every season of the series (vague spoilers ahead):

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Lastly, I offer a more detailed account of my eighth and final entry
(thus far); while my previous selections had been entirely limited to
recent, 21^st^ century television series, and almost exclusively to
"prestige" or "quality" serial drama I had watched as a film scholar,
for this entry I decided to return to *Seinfeld*, a multicamera sitcom I
had encountered for the first time as a preteen. Any critical
observations I've had on this seminal 90s program were only made in
retrospect, which made for a refreshingly different experience while
engaging with it videographically. Perhaps this is also partly the
reason for my more playful application of the epigraphic mode in this
instance:

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What hasn't been said about *Seinfeld*, a show whose ensemble of
characters would routinely sit and talk about themselves to death for
nearly a decade, a show that has itself been talked about to death, from
its original airing in the late 80s, through its dominance of the
pop-cultural zeitgeist of the nineties, to its faux-reunion in 2009's
*Curb Your Enthusiasm* and its recent resurgence in discourse
surrounding its acquisition by Netflix late last year. What is there
left to say?

Well, quite frankly, perhaps nothing. Which is what *Seinfeld* is all
about, after all. Choosing the word to match it up with was a
no-brainer, really. As was the choice of the memorable scene in which
George pitches Jerry the idea for "a show about nothing" (season 4,
episode 3 -- "The Pitch"). Wanting to try something different, I decided
to use the dictionary definitions as subtitles. And as Jerry and
George's high-pitched, nasally ramblings would prove too distracting to
enable focusing on the text, I decided to remove the dialogue all
together, and have the two conduct an entire conversation in which they
would say everything by saying nothing at all. Lastly, I set out to
compose an artificial laugh-track using stock audio samples; this was
actually accomplished with far greater ease than I was expecting -- I
was worried that it would take much more work to make it sound remotely
decent rather than pasted-on and artificial. But the effortlessness with
which the canned laughter and the images came together was yet another
reminder of the classical sitcom's fundamental artificiality.

This was for me both a refreshing generic break from my other entries to
the collection, and an instructive opportunity to materially engage with
the formal conventions of a quintessentially televisual genre. And while
we've all known for decades that *Seinfeld* is a show about nothing --
in more ways than one, as making this video has made me realize --
perhaps we haven't always stopped to question just what "nothing"
actually is.

I believe at least part of the appeal of this parameter-based prompt, in
the context of videographic TV studies, is in the (relatively) narrow
focus dictated by the selection of a single word (and in many cases, a
single sequence as well) -- a welcome focus, as the long-form serial
nature of television texts and the at times immense amounts of raw
material available can make videographic engagement seem daunting to
begin with. As such, I believe the collection holds interest for
scholars of television, videographic and otherwise, as an example of
"[videographic
telephilia](http://mediacommons.org/intransition/2017/videographic-telephilia)"
(Mittell, 2017) that offers a productive range of avenues of engagement
with televisual texts.

Over the next weeks, you will read posts from other people who have
contributed to the TV Dictionary collection and see their fascinating
offerings; for now, I'd like finish by offering this hidden gem from
Clara Richter, one of my favourite recent entries:

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You can also check out the entire collection
[here](https://vimeo.com/showcase/8660446) -- and are welcome to make
your own contributions!

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Ariel Avissar** is a lecturer, PhD student and Tisch Film School
Scholar at Tel Aviv University. His main areas of scholarly interest are
videographic criticism and television studies. He was co-editor of
*Sight & Sound*'s "Best Video Essays" polls
for [2019](https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/best-video-essays-2019), [2020](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/best-video-essays-2020) and [2021](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-video-essays-2021),
and co-editor (along with Evelyn Kreutzer) of the "[Once Upon a
Screen](http://www.thecine-files.com/issue15-audiovisual-essays/)"
audio-visual essay collection published in [*The
Cine-Files*](http://www.thecine-files.com/) (issue 15, fall 2020). Since
2021 he has served as Associate Editor of* *[*\[in\]Transition: The
Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image
Studies*](http://mediacommons.org/intransition/).

 

 


The “TV Dictionary” is a collaborative collection of videos premised on a simple prompt: each video attempts to capture the essence of a television series using a single word, by juxtaposing the dictionary definition(s) of that word with a clip or several clips from the series. It is currently comprised of 48 videos by 25 makers, and has been warmly embraced by the academic videographic community, receiving numerous mentions on Sight &amp;

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

THE TV DICTIONARY – AN INTRODUCTION