How is cinema self-reflexive? Is there a difference between between a self reflexive video and metavideo?
Ways cinema can be self-reflexive:
1. Showing production processes within a video. Example: A video which shows another video being shot.
2. Talking about the production process, intentionality, and meaning of a video within the video itself. Example: A video which includes footage of someone (say the director) describing the meaning of the video.
3. Making a video about yourself. Example: An autobiographical video. This type of self-reflexivity is different because its reflexivenss is not necessarily obvious to the viewer, but will always be noted by the video maker.
A metavideo is a video about video, so showing some sort of production process is implied. Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera for example could easily be considered a metafilm (with his notions of "cinema eye" and "radio ear" also implicated). Likewise a lot of the indigenous video work that I have been watching (by the Video in the Villages Project) can also be categorized as metavideos because they often show production processes interspliced within more conventional narratives. It is important to note that Point #3 (above) might or might not be classified as a metavideo depending on the viewer's awareness of the video's production context.
What might a self-reflexive viewer look like? What about a self-reflexive viewer watching a self-reflexive film? I suppose this question has an easy answer: Brechtian cinema (Verfremdungseffekt). But is there more to it than that?
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