30 votes

The sustained two-shot

10 comments

  1. [4]
    phoenixrises
    Link
    Every Frame a Painting is back! This channel was what got me into watching movies for the cinematography, and was one of the first video essay-ists that I really enjoyed.

    Every Frame a Painting is back! This channel was what got me into watching movies for the cinematography, and was one of the first video essay-ists that I really enjoyed.

    10 votes
    1. [3]
      Grzmot
      Link Parent
      Holy shit, I expected this to be some old video of theirs, but it's true! It's a new one! And it's fantastic. The amount of info and emotion told in not even 6 minutes is insane. I've always felt...

      Holy shit, I expected this to be some old video of theirs, but it's true! It's a new one!

      And it's fantastic. The amount of info and emotion told in not even 6 minutes is insane. I've always felt queasy about the explosion in duration of video essays as Youtube pushed its max video duration to essentially infinity, because just like the directors say in the video; old movies needed to be conservative, because film is expensive. If you have a hard limit of 15 minutes, well, suddenly you're going to think really hard about what needs to be put in there to get your point across.

      10 votes
      1. [2]
        phoenixrises
        Link Parent
        I imagine since Tony is an editor, he has an eye for making things concise, most video essay-ists I don't think are, and it kinda shows. I do like the 2 hour long essays though to kinda blank to,...

        I imagine since Tony is an editor, he has an eye for making things concise, most video essay-ists I don't think are, and it kinda shows. I do like the 2 hour long essays though to kinda blank to, but it's definitely not always something I'd watch.

        4 votes
        1. Grzmot
          Link Parent
          It's also two people writing the scripts which means that you get a lot of better criticism when writing the script. Being your own editor is hard. It's often hard to recognise that those 1000...

          It's also two people writing the scripts which means that you get a lot of better criticism when writing the script.

          Being your own editor is hard. It's often hard to recognise that those 1000 words you put a lot of work into writing should be 500 instead.

          4 votes
  2. [2]
    winther
    Link
    Great video and reminds me how I miss that style of editing, as it seems more rare these days, with modern movies using a lot of cuts in even simple dialogue. Constant shot-reverse shot. As the...

    Great video and reminds me how I miss that style of editing, as it seems more rare these days, with modern movies using a lot of cuts in even simple dialogue. Constant shot-reverse shot. As the video says, every style has its place, but I am personally not a fan of the short cuts being the standard these days.

    8 votes
    1. phoenixrises
      Link Parent
      I wonder if it has something to do with the attention span problem nowadays. I imagine that has some factor in editors decisions in some capacity.

      I wonder if it has something to do with the attention span problem nowadays. I imagine that has some factor in editors decisions in some capacity.

      2 votes
  3. JRandomHacker
    Link
    I doubt you could call someone "the best" in a category as broad as "youtube video essay", but Tony and Taylor might just get there. Super psyched to see them back.

    I doubt you could call someone "the best" in a category as broad as "youtube video essay", but Tony and Taylor might just get there. Super psyched to see them back.

    5 votes
  4. [3]
    cloud_loud
    Link
    Video essays have changed significantly since EFAP shut down. They’re now hour long yap sessions with no thesis, that’s all thanks to the rise of Breadtube in the late 2010s. So it’s nice to see...

    Video essays have changed significantly since EFAP shut down. They’re now hour long yap sessions with no thesis, that’s all thanks to the rise of Breadtube in the late 2010s. So it’s nice to see the return of a short video essay with an actual point and actual analysis.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Akir
      Link Parent
      Having no thesis is the drawing line between a video essay and a vlog. At least in my opinion.

      Having no thesis is the drawing line between a video essay and a vlog. At least in my opinion.

      4 votes
      1. cloud_loud
        Link Parent
        Yeah seems like a basic requirement that we all learned in English classes that an essay needs a thesis. But I’ve seen so many videos, largely focused on children’s media from the 00s, where the...

        Yeah seems like a basic requirement that we all learned in English classes that an essay needs a thesis.

        But I’ve seen so many videos, largely focused on children’s media from the 00s, where the narrator presents a lot of vague ideas without much research or even textual evidence to support such ideas.

        2 votes