Video Haiku: 17 Seconds in a Second Language
By: Ashley Ford-Mihashi
inekari wa
kotoshi mo onaji
sato no kure
(The rice harvest
is the same this year.
Dusk in the village.)
In autumn 2021, my husband and I traveled to the Yotsuya rice fields in Aichi, Japan. We wanted to get out of the city, but COVID-19 restrictions still discouraged us from traveling far. When we got there, it was like a different world, yet a familiar one. The rice farmers were cutting the rice and drying it on hasa (wooden drying racks), the same as they have done for hundreds of years before. As we walked around, I took videos with my camera of the spiders still making their webs, the pretty cosmos still sprouting their pink and white petals, farmers cleaning up after a long day of work, and the handmade scarecrows, still guarding the fields with attitude. The village still felt like the world I knew, and maybe the pandemic hadn’t changed everything.
On our way back, we passed the time of the drive by composing Haiku together. It can be hard to put an event into words, especially in only 17 syllables, and especially in a second language. It is these limitations that force us to get creative. They are also what makes our choices even more meaningful. While writing the Haiku, I learned the Japanese word inekari, a traditional term for rice-harvesting. I asked my husband why my Haiku needed the grammatical particle mo (also), and not to (and). As I scrolled through my photos, I lingered on my favorites for inspiration. These images were so much a part of my Haiku that I wanted to create a video of them. When I came home, I edited these images into a short video montage alongside my Japanese Haiku.
This is what I want my students to do by filmmaking, to create something meaningful and personal, using language, images, music, to connect and communicate with others. But many students never have the opportunity to make a film. I will admit, it can be intimidating. Teachers and students often feel they don’t have enough time, resources, or experience to take on such a project. Therefore, in this article, I’d like to share a simple filmmaking activity I’m deeply excited about: Video Haiku. This activity attempts to lower the barrier. It encourages students to engage with filmmaking with a focus on language and communication, in minimal time (2-3 lessons), with structure, materials, and without too many technical demands. All you need is a camera and a simple editing app!
What Is a Video Haiku?
To understand Video Haiku, we first need to understand its original form—Haiku.
Haiku is a traditional Japanese poem composed of only three lines, 17 syllables or sound units, in the structure of 5-7-5. Video Haiku simply matches this form with additional layers of video and sound. Three moving images combine with the written text, voice, sound, and music with duration of 5 seconds, 7 seconds, and 5 seconds to create one short, but meaningful 17-second film. Written Haiku is meant to show and evoke images in our minds. Video Haiku brings these images to life. We don’t rely only on words.
Haiku’s limitations force its authors and audiences to consider what is both said and unsaid. Video Haiku can make these messages more visible, but the limitation of the number of clips and their duration also means there is still much left to the imagination. Traditional Haiku also employs elements like seasonal words, known as kigo. In more recent works, Iida (2017) has extended written Haiku in the L2 classroom beyond text by also incorporating student-drawn visuals. In one instance, the seasonal element did not appear in the Haiku written in English, but was still present and understood through images accompanying the poem. In other instances, features like colors also helped to express emotion and articulate student voice. Cutting words, or kireji, are also an essential component of traditional Haiku, and act as signals that invite deeper meaning. The juxtaposition of different clips in video editing quite literally cuts, provides those gaps that trigger meaning-making through connection or contrast in a Video Haiku.
On the purpose and form of Haiku, Iida reminds us that Haiku are not observations but “direct, personal response to nature and reality” (2010, p. 32).
This is not so different from how Sergei Eisenstein (1949) described the form and function of film. Eisenstein described two basic elements, the shot and montage; shots are the fragments representing nature and reality, and montage is the way in which these fragments are combined to create meaning. Much like writing a poem, the selection of shots and editing of video is also a personal and meaningful act of composition.
The Magic in Seventeen Seconds
Video Haiku is more than just a language activity, it is an exercise in multimodal composition. Students write the text, and they continue to write through editing: selecting shots, deciding the order, adding music. The magic is not only in the words, images, and sound, but how they interact and work together to express meaning to an audience.
At its core, it is creative writing, and students make meaning in the language they are learning. Haiku composition in EFL contexts has been shown to develop learners’ voice, linguistic precision, and audience awareness (Iida, 2011). The syllable constraints force learners to consider every word choice and to count syllables in English (Iida, 2010). Students can also read their poems aloud which can encourage phonetic awareness and practice in prosody.
In a Video Haiku, editing turns the poem into a film. We often think of editing only as a technical process, but what if it is also where meaning is made?
Let’s try an experiment. You can watch or try to imagine: You see a close-up of a man with a neutral expression. Next, you see a bowl of soup. Then, the same man again. How does he feel? Is he hungry? Replace the bowl of soup with an image of a girl lying in a coffin. Does the man now feel sorrow? The images alone are just a man with a neutral expression and a bowl of soup, but when put next to one another, they can express something new together.
This phenomenon is known as the Kuleshov effect, and it is a concept known to almost every filmmaker. This experiment was first conducted by Lev Kuleshov in the 1920s, and he claimed that film editing has the power to generate new meaning.
It is a great theory. It is also one that has been taught for decades with almost no scientific evidence behind it. The original film and research notes were lost, and when Prince & Hensley (1992) recreated the experiment, they actually found no evidence of the effect at all. Yet the theory prevails, but since then, both behavioral and neural experiments have provided some evidence to support it. Brain imaging studies using fMRI have found that the Kuleshov effect acts through the mechanism of contextual framing and activates several areas in our brain used for processing socially relevant information and emotions (Cao et al., 2024); Mobbs et al., 2006. EEG studies suggest that the previous shot sets up an expectation that shapes how the facial expression in the next shot is perceived (Calbi et al. 2019).
The Kuleshov effect does not only work with visuals. Baranowski and Hecht (2017) layered only music on top of an image of a neutral face and found the same effect. Although most discussion of the Kuleshov effect involves interpreting facial expressions, it is the mechanism beneath this that matters most. It is about what surrounds the image and what that leads us to expect. A shot of a rice field is just a rice field. Put a shot of farmers after it, and it becomes labor. Layer it with words like kotoshi mo onaji, and it becomes another year of hard work that didn’t change. Add an image of dusk and nostalgic music and it becomes the end of a season. This is how it all comes together. Nothing in a Video Haiku means anything on its own. Each layer surrounds the others, the words frame the images, and the images frame the words. The speech and sound add emotion and depth.
When students practice multimodal composition, they make deliberate choices about how these different forms of meaning (images, objects, body, space, sound, text, and speech) interact and contribute to the whole (Cope and Kalantzis, 2020; Kalantzis and Cope, 2020; Liang & Lim, 2021; Skulstad, 2021). A student who creates a Video Haiku about their grandmother’s garden must decide whether to show an image of hydrangeas or to withhold it, whether to speak with a warm, soft tone or longing one, whether music should be fast or slow or in a minor or major key. These are meaning-making decisions, not technical ones.
Students are also perceiving and constructing meaning when they watch. In 2018, Ildirar & Ewing tried the Kuleshov experiment with two different groups of participants, experienced film viewers and adults who were watching films for the first time. The experienced viewers interpreted the cuts as connected, while the inexperienced viewers could not link the clips. This partially supports the Kuleshov effect, but more importantly for our students, it suggests that interpreting cuts is a literacy we learn through experience watching and interpreting films, in the same way we learn to read and understand poetry. When students make a Video Haiku and share them with others, they can practice these literacies.
The beauty in this process is that Video Haiku brings the audience not only into the creator’s mind but also gives the audience an experience. The audience will watch and respond to it, sometimes without fully comprehending it, and may interpret it in ways that are personal and unique to them and quite different from the creator’s intention. This dialogue and negotiation of meaning occurs when students share and discuss each other’s films and is a critical step of demonstrating their learning. It shows them there is no one right answer, and not only one way of looking at things.
How to Make a Video Haiku
- Level: High School or University, a wide range of language levels (CEFR B1+), but adaptable for younger learners with more support.
- Time: 2-3 lessons. Some parts, such as shooting and editing, may be done outside of class.
- Materials: a camera or smartphone camera app, basic editing app (Instagram Reels or Edits, Clipchamp, Capcut, etc.), and a three-frame storyboard template as below.
- Procedure: Iida (2010) proposes a five-step framework for composing Haiku with L2 learners which I have adapted below for Video Haiku with six steps.
- Learn the concept. In class, you can introduce Video Haiku and Haiku, as necessary, explaining its structure and showing and discussing examples.
- Shoot videos. Students use their camera and collect various video clips. As Iida (2010) suggests, we can encourage students to use their senses to capture images: What do they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel? They should shoot each clip for at least ten seconds in length so that they can trim them later. They can take as many shots as they like since they will be able to select the three shots they want to use later. You can also encourage them to experiment with different kinds of shots: close-ups, high or low angles, and camera movement.
- Storyboard and write the Haiku. Students review the video clips they collected to help them write their Haiku. They select three clips to use and sketch images on the storyboard frames. Below the images, they write each line of their Haiku, paying attention to syllable count.
- Edit the video. Using an editing app, add the clips in order, trim them to 5, 7, and 5 seconds in length and add the Haiku text onto each image. They can experiment with its position, font, color, or animation as well. Next, using the in-app voice recorder, they add their own voice reading the text aloud focusing on the emotion they want to express. Then, they can adjust (lower or mute) the ambient sound of the clip, and add other sounds or music to their video. Finally, they should end their video with the title of their Haiku and their name. When they finish editing, they can export their video and share it to a class page (such as Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams).
- Share with classmates. In small groups of three or four, students watch each other’s Video Haiku at least twice–once to experience it, and once to watch more closely. But you can let them watch as many times as they need. The audience discusses what they think it means and writes down or gives comments and impressions. Then the creator can talk about their intention or respond to comments and answer questions. If there is not enough time to watch all videos during class, encourage them to watch and comment on the class page.
- Enter a film festival. The Reel Voices Language Learning Film Festival is an international student film festival held online every year in January. Students can submit their videos to share with students worldwide making short films in any language they are learning. This festival contains a special video contest called the Reel Challenge based on a specific theme or prompt. The theme for the 2027 contest is Video Haiku. Although students may hesitate, they should be encouraged to enter events like this and share their work with authentic audiences outside the classroom.
By the end of the activity, students have a short film they have created themselves, in a language they are still learning. My first Video Haiku looked backward, to a rice harvest that has continued for hundreds of years. That’s what I needed in 2021. 17 syllables and three shots is a small space, but big enough to reach for something, and with students you will be surprised by which direction they look and what they reach for.
References
Baranowski, A. M., & Hecht, H. (2017). The auditory Kuleshov effect: Multisensory integration in movie editing. Perception, 46(5), 624-631. https://10.1177/0301006616682754
Calbi, M., Siri, F., Heimann, K., Barratt, D., Gallese, V., Kolesnikov, A., & Umiltà, M. A. (2019). How context influences the interpretation of facial expressions: A source localization high-density EEG study on the “Kuleshov effect.”. Scientific Rreports, 9(1), 2107. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37786-y
Cao, Z., Wang, Y., Wu, L., Xie, Y., Shi, Z., Zhong, Y., & Wang, Y. (2024). Reexamining the Kuleshov effect: Behavioral and neural evidence from authentic film experiments. Plos Oone, 19(8), e0308295. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308295
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2020). Making sense: Reference, agency, and structure in a grammar of multimodal meaning. Cambridge University Press.
Eisenstein, S. (1949). Film form: Essays in film theory. (J. Leyda, Ed. & Trans.) [1st ed.] Harcourt, Brace.
Iida, A. (2010). Developing voice by composing Haiku: A social-expressivist approach for teaching Haiku writing in EFL contexts. In English Teaching Forum, 48 (Vol. 48, No. (1), pp. 28-34). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ914886.pdf
Iida, A. (2011). Revisiting Haiku: The contribution of composing haiku to L2 academic literacy development. [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania]. https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/e193f9b6f7004ce1a2640329eda4ee84.pdf
Iida, A. (2017). Expressing voice in a foreign language: Multiwriting Haiku pedagogy in the EFL context. TEFLIN Journal: A Publication on the Teaching & Learning of English, 28(2), 260. http://dx.doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v28i2/260-276
Ildirar, S., & Ewing, L. (2018). Revisiting the Kuleshov effect with first-time viewers. Projections, 12(1), 19-38. https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2018.120103
Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2020). Adding sense: Context and interest in a grammar of multimodal meaning. Cambridge University Press.
Liang, W. J., & Lim, F. V. (2021). A pedagogical framework for digital multimodal composing in the English Language classroom. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 15(4), 306-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2020.1800709
Mobbs, D., Weiskopf, N., Lau, H. C., Featherstone, E., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2006). The Kuleshov effect: The influence of contextual framing on emotional attributions. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(2), 95-106. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsl014
Prince, S., & Hensley, W. E. (1992). The Kuleshov Effect: Recreating the classic experiment. Cinema Journal, 31(2), 59-75. https://doi.org/10.2307/1225144
Skulstad, A. S. (2021). Theoretical perspectives on choice in multimodal text production and consequences for EAL task design. In S. Diamantopoulou & S. Orevik (Eds.), Multimodality in English Language Learning (pp. 146-157). Routledge.
Ashley Ford-Mihashi actively implements Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Performance-Assisted Learning (PAL) in her language classroom, especially through filmmaking, music, art, and drama activities. She is a lecturer in the Language for Global Citizenship Program at Nagoya City University and organizes the Reel Voices Language Learning Film Festival.