The pair of special issues, Academic Quarter 27 and 28, evidences and interrogates the possibilities of filmmaking as research method, medium of scholarly communication and as a distinct mode of thinking in the academy. The first special issue (AQ27) contains eleven prose articles (four co-authored), while the second (AQ28) contains ten video essays (some composed of multiple individual videos), and guiding texts (five co-authored). The primary aim has been to bring together practitioners and scholars of filmmaking research, academic film and videographic criticism from across a range of disciplines to consider the affordances and challenges of filmmaking as means and medium of investigation and communication. This second special issue has also been conceived to debate and to demonstrate how the video essay can work as a scholarly form.