#longform editions

[zef-zef]

A wonderful chilled piece by Christina Vantzou, on one of my fav labels.

Christina Vantzou - Observations, edits, a cure for restlessness (Longform Editions, 2023)

[nofatclips]

Ceres by Saariselka

[slack-wise]

Miriam Moles

[burlveneer-music]

SUSS & Andrew Tuttle - SUSS brings their ambient country sound to Longform Editions in this New York-Sydney collaboration

New York-based trio SUSS bridge atmospheric minimalism with classic Americana instrumentation, pioneering a genre they call ‘ambient country’ – a term that aptly defines their vivid and singular sound. SUSS have been described by UNCUT as if “Eno’s Apollo Atmospheres crash-landed in America’s Sonoran Desert”, and by Pitchfork as “neither rawboned nor ramshackle … [their] elegantly composed brand of ambient country stands as tall and clean as a brand-new pair of cowboy boots”. Composed of veteran musicians Pat Irwin (B-52s), Bob Holmes (Rubber Rodeo), and Jonathan Gregg (The Linemen), the group made the decision to carry on as a trio after the loss of founding member Gary Leib in 2020. Crafting their cinematic soundscapes with the resumes to back them up, SUSS weave pedal steel, harmonica, harmonium, mandolin, baritone guitar, and National guitar with synthesisers and loops, creating a massive and high lonesome sound. Andrew Tuttle is a best-kept secret of the Australian musical underground – a songwriter, composer and improviser who has collaborated with Matmos, Steve Gunn, Charlie Parr, Gwenifer Raymond, Luke Schneider and many others. Tuttle’s music exists serenely and purposefully in a space where the five-string banjo and the six-string acoustic guitar weave in and out of processed electronics. Like time-lapse photography, it unfolds its colours and textures with an astonishing gracefulness and wonderment.

[burlveneer]

Mark Gowing's typography for Longform Editions

Mark Gowing operates as the organisation’s creative director, creating and managing all visual art and communications. Gowing has over 30 years experience in publishing and design and is also the founder of Formist. His Longform Editions cover art is created using a series of generative typographic systems that utilise the artist name and work title as raw materials for abstracted outcomes.

Christina Vantzou - Observations, edits, a cure for restlessness

Valentina Magaletti - Different Rooms

Lia Kohl - Untitled Radio (futile, fertile)

Gavilán Rayna Russom - Trans Feminist Symphonic Music

Melanie Velarde - Deep Circles

Angel Bat Dawid - Harkening Etudes

N Chambers - Itinerant Pattern

@markgowing

@formist_foundry

@formisteditions

@longformeditions

[lukesalbumawheneverhefeelslikeit]

3428: "A spark, a reminder" by - Maria Moles

[opineonionated]

On the decks

A favorite sound artist who also has a Tumblr! Found them through Bandcamp, met them on Twitter, and connected via Tumblr. Nice!

This is out on the Longform Editions label (pretty much all of their releases are recommended). Here, Matt moves from his spacey Americana/folk-ish rock to a more ethnic-feeling pasture, playing his ‘dov_electronics bantar’ aka a modified 1940s Kay banjo, among other instruments. Glorious stuff!

[biosuoni]

Eternity by more eaze

[asurrogateblog]

Listen:

Roger Waters had come unstuck in time.

[mirrortouchedsea]

Day 15

“Tatsumi-senpai, have you ever kissed anyone?” Kaname asked, sitting across from the other boy in the catacombs. Everyone else had left for the night leaving the two of them alone. 

“Why are you asking?” Tatsumi replied, confused as he moved one of his chess pieces on the board. Kaname didn’t know anything about how the game worked and was mostly just guessing at where the pieces moved. 

“A-ah it’s nothing, I was just wondering…I haven’t kissed anyone.” Kaname could feel his face heating up. God this was embarrassing, why was he doing this? 

“I haven’t kissed anyone either.” Their game of chess forgotten for the moment. Kaname’s face burned even hotter. 

“Would you--would you like to try kissing?” He barely squeaked out. How was the great Kaname Tojou such a loser when it came to his crush? He should be confident and yet here he was. 

“Can you repeat that, Kaname-san?” He loved the way his name sounded in Tatsumi’s voice. It made him want to die in the moment though. 

“Can I--Can we try…kissing?” His voice was still soft but evidently loud enough for Tatsumi to hear if the slight blush on his face was evidence of anything. Tatsumi gently moved their chess board to the side and slid closer to Kaname. Kaname felt his heart rate pick up at the proximity as Tatsumi leaned in closer. 

How was he supposed to kiss? He tried to remember the movies and how they did it, closing his eyes and letting Tatsumi guide him, his lips slightly parted. The moment Tatsumi’s lips touched his he thought he would fly, and evidently his mouth moved before he could think, as Tatsumi let out a yelp and brought a hand to his lips. 

Kaname bit him. Oh how embarrassing! It wasn’t enough to draw blood but still! 

“I’m so sorry Tatsumi-senpai! I didn’t mean to do that! Oh god--” 

Tatsumi laughed. Kaname stopped in his tracks as Tatsumi continued laughing. He wasn’t laughing at Kaname, though, or at least not at Kaname as a person, but rather at his reaction to the whole thing. 

“It’s okay, Kaname-san. We can try again if you’d like.” 

“Y-yes I’d like that very much.” 

They leaned in again and Kaname clenched his jaw to keep himself from biting Tatsumi again, but he got a little overeager again and felt their heads bump into each other and not where their lips were (which was where he was aiming for). Kaname curses under his breath but Tatsumi giggles again (a heavenly sound to Kaname’s ears) and cups his face before gently guiding him to Tatsumi’s lips. 

Kaname was too in shock to do anything for a moment. He was kissing someone. And not just someone. He was kissing Tatsumi Kazehaya, heartthrob of Reimei Academy. He closed his eyes and relaxed, reaching to grab Tatsumi’s blazer and pull him closer. He felt their teeth clack together but it wasn’t as bad as their first attempt and for Kaname, that was enough. 

They pulled away, panting heavily, and Kaname noticed that Tatsumi’s pupils had dilated. He wanted to pull Tatsumi in for another kiss but held himself back, at least for a moment. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Tatsumi spoke, breathless and full of affection. 

“No, it wasn’t.” Kaname pulled Tatsumi back in for another kiss, narrowly avoiding bumping their heads together again. He could do this forever, just him and Tatsumi in the catacombs, kissing to their hearts content. 

[zef-zef]

Liis Ring - I Found What I Was Looking For (Longform Editions, 2024)

[delucadarling]

May Writing Challenge - Day 16

I nearly forgot to write yesterday, but managed to pull through just before going to sleep! And today I finished the rough draft of chapter 6 of In Search Of, which I'm pretty fuckin pleased by. Here's hoping going into the later half of May leads to one or two more chapters being complete!

[shastafirecracker]

This Ken is a Vash the Stampede I made in 2007

[thedevotionaltour]

when i can bring myself to write fanfic worthy of posting all of you will see. wait just you wait and see

[standardquip]

Post I'm replying to is here

"Generally speaking, the more hours I devote to [editing] a video, the more I like it and the prouder I am of the results.

I fear that others don't feel the same, though. My second-most popular video on Tumblr is an "older" one of relatively little effort, and I unfortunately can't say that I care much for it myself. It took maybe 20 hours, tops, whereas more recent videos that pushed past the 50-hour mark—and that I'm far more confident in—have garnered maybe half the notes.

[...]

I enjoy edits with lots of clips and effects... but are those kinds of AMVs just "bad"? Or is the way I'm executing them bad? Am I focusing on all the wrong things with my videos?"

- @marshmallowgoop

This is touching on a much larger "issue" in the vidding/editing community than you might realize (although you do seem to recognize it is an issue) but I'm going to try to tackle it in many points.

These are in no particular order.

Your audience doesn't know how long it took to make something.

I know it's hard to come to terms with the fact that sometimes "crappy" things do better than stuff you personally like more, but unfortunately that happens with everyone, all the time. Memes get more traction than well-written anecdotes, headlines get more traction than the actual article, and short vids are often easier to relate to than longer ones with more of a story.

What the internet zeitgeist grabs cannot easily be predicted and is never a judgement of quality. Throw this logic in the garbage, because what goes viral should never have any factor in your self-worth.

Who is your [main] audience for your videos?

If you're making your videos for you, than whatever you like is good. If you like what you end up with, then the video succeeded. If you are making videos to chase audience interaction (which is valid, btw, just not something I personally do), then they need to appeal to a very wide general audience. You'll need to re-assess why the vids aren't getting as much interaction as they used to and adjust your editing style to increase that interaction.

But your past posts don't seem like that's your target. It seems like you make vids for you. So don't think your videos are "bad" because they're not getting likes. They're getting the most important like: Your own.

Of course, it's always nice to be validated by other people. But that's generally not going to happen based on the amount of effort you put into something. It's generally just gonna be with people who vibe with or relate to your content, and if they don't then it won't be shared as much.

Another thing to factor in is where the people who like the stuff you like are located. Maybe your immediate circle is more about conan memes, and you need to go to reddit or something to find the conan romance fans. It could also be timing. Maybe the people who like conan romance aren't online when you post and don't see it. Or maybe it's just luck because the internet and social media are just Like That and totally random. Talk to any artist about trying to play the algorithm to sell more art! 😆

What is the ultimate goal for your videos?

On a per-video basis, you'll generally have a premise for a video.

Things like:

I want to play with new effects

I want to gain as many likes as possible

I want to make an action video

I want to make a character profile that people who have not seen the source video can appreciate

I want to make a good video for a particular song

A "good" video will balance visual entertainment with story, but ultimately, in my experience, it helps to simplify your video down to one goal, and then base all of your following decisions on if those decisions achieve the goal.

As an example, let's say you want to make an action video but your primary interest is the visual effects. This will affect your scene selection, as you should pick scenes that will work better with effects.

Action videos are generally more cohesive when they center around one particular character or duel. If that "plot" were your goal then you'd pick scenes that created a narrative structure aligning with the character or duel's progression.

But since you want to use as much vfx as possible, you may diverge from that cohesiveness by instead injecting a montage of "powering up" scenes with flashy transitions, or maybe you will sidestep the focus on one particular rivalry and include another fight with an unrelated character because that gives more opportunity for better added animation.

This does not make any quality judgements on what is "good" or "bad" when it comes to videos - instead it comes down to whether this particular editing decision advances the ultimate goal of your final video.

Similar to writing, if you're making a persuasive essay, you shouldn't meander onto your own related-but-not-actually-the-topic-of-the-essay rant. The rant might be great, but it's not the purpose of the essay and ultimately just muddies the point you're trying to make (much like this metaphor probably did for my post about video editing, whoops).

"is the way I'm executing [amv effects] bad?"

First of all:

"Good" or "bad" is so subjective, there is no overseer that can definitely say this is good or bad, because it's art, and art is subjective and on and on. Which I'm sure you know, but it bears repeating anyway.

I have tried to be unbiased for this reply so far, but I have to disclaim before I continue that I come from the "school" of "raw editing" - which is to say, trying to stay away from a bunch of effects - so while I am trying to remain unbiased, what I say next will probably be biased despite my efforts.

Even though there is not a definitive "good" or "bad" in vidding (and if you're hanging out with people who are making blanket judgements like this... don't), we can instead look at art, cinematography, and editing fundamentals for the general "laws".

As fan video editors, we are also essentially our own directors and cinematographers. We can choose which scenes we want to use for certain goals and sometimes even make up our own scenes through compositing.

I made this playlist that is about half fundamentals and half random editing guides. I do still add to it, but it's hard to find videos that aren't bloated (and also related to vidding somehow), so updates are few and far between.

Anyway, of note are:

These are both highly valuable as they can help you not only choose which scenes to put together, but how to position them if you're framing your own shots through zooms and motion effects.

I watched all the videos you linked, and I think you are a good editor that makes what you like and that may not appeal to a broad audience.

I'm not a conan fan, but your vids aren't boring. I'm not a heavy vfx editing fan, but your videos don't look like most heavy vfx shorts. You're either making stuff your own (what I assume) or using presets I'm not familiar with.

WARNING I'M GOING TO CRITIQUE SOME OF YOUR VIDS BELOW

(I assumed you might actually want answers to some of those questions; if not, skip this part!)

The school of thought I come from with vidding says that everything should have a purpose. If my goal is to make a plot-driven vid, then what does a particular effect add to the video?

In this video at 0:04, you have this kind of cut in block thing, and I'm wondering what is this for? Why is it there? To me it's distracting and interrupts the flow.

But it could be a callback to Yu-Gi-Oh somehow? Maybe it's to give the video a feel like it needs to buffer load or something?

I'm not familiar with either source mentioned in the description, so I can't say, but as a general audience member, there's just so much stuff happening visually that I have no idea what's supposed to be happening story-wise. Maybe it's a character profile?

I'm sure you could extrapolate effects and decisions for all your other AMVs. But deciding if something works for your video's goal has nearly zero impact on the time it takes to complete.

Meanwhile, I look at this vid, which seems like a standard romance vid and it seems like a good balance between the romance and the effects; I'd only maybe change one or two things. Nearly all the effects work together to advance the story of the romance, so I'm not sure what went "wrong" here (in terms of lack of audience interaction).

END CRITIQUING

Is accessibility a concern?

Many vfx-heavy amvs rely a lot on motion transitions, which can cause motion sickness! I've gotten motion sick from more AMVs than I care to admit LOL.

But even aside from that, there are photosensitive people, and their photosensitivity triggers are far more broad than just flashing lights.

I noticed all your vids have captions and that you participate on ao3, so it seems like you're hanging out with people who also value accessibility.

In this way, by making vfx-heavy videos you are probably limiting your audience to people who are not photosensitive and/or sensitive people willing to "gamble" on a vfx heavy vid.

What you can do to help curb this is by adding content warnings about photosensitive triggers in your videos. On ao3 these are typically called "physical triggers," but 2 years ago I made a whole system called Vidding Photosensitivity Relay (VPR) .

Basically is comes down to describing what visually happens in your video. In most of your videos cases it would be motion transitions, quick cuts, and peripheral text. These relays (I'd hesitate to call them warnings) give people a better idea of what to expect when it comes to the videos they're watching.

With a better informed decision they could know if they can watch the video now, or later in a different setting, or maybe not at all to avoid a days-long migraine or something similar-- I was very surprised just how many people involved in vidding are photosensitive!

So that may be something to look into. You don't have to use VPR as a system, but it at the very least does list potential triggers and examples so you could refer to those.

My somewhat off-topic more of a personal reply here

"But I'm absolutely terrified that I'm only getting worse here—that as I learn more effects and get more comfortable with my program, my work is actually degrading."

(source)

Maybe you're just losing focus? Did you go through a writing phase where you had a massive vocabulary and started inserting all the "big words" into everything? The usage is technically correct but the message gets muddied due to the readers perception?

Maybe it's that.

I think re-assessing what your personal goals are, and deciding for yourself what you want to prioritize - your likes vs other people's likes (for starters) - will help.

There is also a need to decouple internet interaction from self-worth, which I know is MUCH easier said than done. But there are SO MANY great artists, editors, people in general, who don't get much interaction because the algorithm doesn't prefer them and/or they don't market themselves. That doesn't make them worth any less than the people who make it their priority to market themselves instead of create art.

I hope this whole post doesn't come off as patronizing or anything!

I usually just talk into the void and not get actual direct replies LOL.

Also sorry for taking so long to reply! Hope it helps in some way.