
Postmortem: Every Frame a Painting (2017) - smacktoward
https://medium.com/@tonyszhou/postmortem-1b338537fabc
======
autoexec
> "Nearly every stylistic decision you see about the channel — the length of
> the clips, the number of examples, which studios’ films we chose, the way
> narration and clip audio weave together, the reordering and flipping of
> shots, the remixing of 5.1 audio, the rhythm and pacing of the overall video
> — all of that was reverse-engineered from YouTube’s Copyright ID."

Copyright and the rabid defense of IP by corporations shapes so much of what
we're allowed to see and talk about and _how_ we have to address those things.
There's no telling how much better these already great videos would have been
if they weren't shackled by fear of censorship or attack by media cartels.

These guys had the time, skill, and energy to figure out how to work around
the problem, but I can't help but wonder how much stuff we're missing out on
because a system designed to encourage the creation and propagation of
creative works has been perverted to control and suppress it instead.

~~~
lopmotr
Only if you're using other people's work. Make your own original content and
there isn't nearly as much of a problem. Who says everyone should have the
right to profit off somebody else's work? especially one that's only
considered good because of all the money spent on marketing it.

~~~
caf
If you don't consider Every Frame A Painting to be original work, then I think
this is just one of those situations where there is so little common ground
between two sides that there can never be any agreement.

~~~
wtallis
I'm not sure you should even bother framing things in terms of "common ground"
or "two sides" when it's clear that one party is trying to define _original
work_ so narrowly that it's doubtful anything could qualify.

------
legitster
>A huge percentage of the Internet is the same information, repeated over and
over again. This is especially apparent on film websites; they call it
aggregation but it’s really just a nicer way to say regurgitation.

Man, what an apt way to explain my frustration with the monoculture of the
web. But it's creeping into the world of books, where fewer and fewer writers
know how to research anything. I cannot tell you the number of books I have
picked up lately that cite things they saw on Twitter or gleaned from a Google
search.

~~~
pembrook
Ironically, even this very article has been posted on HN twice before.

~~~
BeeBoBub
HN aggregates, it has no illusions of creating original works. Occasional
high-quality reposts are a virtue of HN, and I don't think HN suffers from the
same regurgitation issues as film sites. The film websites often come with
analysis or reviews of films where the regurgitation lies, whereas Hacker News
provides no editorialized comment on the articles, only discussion.

"Echo Chambers" etc... could be merely a distributed version regurgitated
content, however I think the HN community tends to self-police groupthink

~~~
lonelappde
The comments on HN are quite often regurgitated, especially for the political
topics rehashed every week.

~~~
hailk
Comments are not the main content that HN aggregates. They facilitate
discussions around the main content, which are just either links or at best a
question.

------
dredmorbius
Even as a non-cinemaphile, this channel, and the post-mortem essay, had
resonated with me. Both are excellent, both provide far more than insights
into a century of cinema, although if that's all that you take from it it's
more than worth the time.

I'd commented on the postmortem essay shortly after it was published with some
additional thoughts of relevance to my own (very non-cinematic) work:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7hgb24/brillia...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7hgb24/brilliant_failure_every_frame_a_painting/)

(I'd also submitted the same link, a minute after smacktoward did, full credit
to them it's a very worthwhile submission.)

~~~
the_af
Same here. As a... let's say, cinema-newbie, I found the Every Frame a
Painting channel simply _fascinating_. I devoured every chapter in a short
time. To me this kind of channels is a triumph, what YouTube can be and should
strive to be.

I think they did overreach with some conclusions. For example, his "obvious"
conclusion about the story told by the edition in the clip with the father and
the two young daughters wasn't at all obvious to me (and judging by the
comments on that video, a lot of other viewers didn't get it either). I
suppose it's part of the subconscious knowledge someone in the industry has
which someone outside doesn't.

~~~
meowface
Is anyone aware of other content like it on YouTube? Long-form , artistic,
very high quality. Channels like 3Blue1Brown and Kurzgesagt are usually great,
but I don't think they're the same kind of thing.

~~~
davinic
Nerdwriter:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJkMlOu7faDgqh4PfzbpLdg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJkMlOu7faDgqh4PfzbpLdg)

~~~
meowface
I've come to feel nearly all of his content is just blogspam in video form.

------
open-source-ux
What a shame this YouTube channel ended. The videos were insightful and so
well put-together. Making a video that is both informative and entertaining at
the same time is much harder than it seems.

Are there are other film-related YouTube channels people recommend?

Two I recently discovered:

 _Mystery Clock Cinema_ : Film director Alex Proyas ('Dark City', 'I, Robot')
talks on camera about independent filmmaking

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO7h2SOZjRah8bhyOXtGHw/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO7h2SOZjRah8bhyOXtGHw/videos)

 _Ponysmasher_ : Film director David Sandberg ('Annabelle Creation',
'Shazam!') has a few behind-the-scenes videos and thoughts on filmmaking. The
channel is not updated very often, but his most recent video 'Random Lessons
Learned from Making Films' is very watchable and has a surprising (and very
honest) revelation near the end of the video:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/ponysmasher/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/ponysmasher/videos)

~~~
smacktoward
Red Letter Media:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrTNhL_yO3tPTdQ5XgmmWjA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrTNhL_yO3tPTdQ5XgmmWjA)

Lessons from the Screenplay:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErSSa3CaP_GJxmFpdjG9Jw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErSSa3CaP_GJxmFpdjG9Jw)

~~~
magashna
RLM is great for more casual and humorous views on film. Their "Best of the
Worst" series is one of my favorite things to watch

------
GuiA
_> Nearly every stylistic decision you see about the channel — the length of
the clips, the number of examples, which studios’ films we chose, the way
narration and clip audio weave together, the reordering and flipping of shots,
the remixing of 5.1 audio, the rhythm and pacing of the overall video — all of
that was reverse-engineered from YouTube’s Copyright ID._

Wow. Talk about “the medium is the message”.

------
_hardwaregeek
What I love about Every Frame a Painting is the depth of its research. It's
quite clear that the creators had an extensive knowledge of film. The videos
always include wonderfully selected interviews with the filmmakers that
emphasize the point far more than just a person talking. The Deakins interview
in Shot | Reverse Shot taken from Cinematographer Style is a nice example^[1].
Or Sidney Lumet's interview in the Kurosawa video^[2]. Taking from film
criticism solidifies the video's arguments, creates an amazing rhythm to the
videos (Tony and Taylor are clearly great editors) and also prevents the
"annoying person endlessly lecturing to me about film" feeling that I get with
some other channels.

I've thought about doing videos of my own on various topics (the usage of eyes
and glances in Il Posto, Kieslowski's poetry, the reflexivity of In the Mood
for Love, etc.) but the YouTube film criticism industry is pretty saturated.
Perhaps a different format?

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UE3jz_O_EM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UE3jz_O_EM)
[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doaQC-S8de8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doaQC-S8de8)

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836782)

------
ljm
Every Frame a Painting is what truly turned me on to Fincher, after I’d
enjoyed Seven, Fight Club, The Social Network, Gone Girl, Zodiac.

He’s on the same level as Lynch for me; they both found their favourite
perversion.

As for Fincher, Mindhunter is the spiritual successor to Zodiac. It’s
fantastic.

------
VHRanger
I've always seen this as a workflow/business failure.

Obviously they had a great product -- everyone I've shown EFaP to loves it.
They could have spun it into something of a personal brand (like, say, CGP
Grey or Nerdwriter did). But instead killed it off because it felt like more
of a burden than a reward.

Might have been on monetization, or personal perspective. In the essay they
seem uncompromising on quality, but there are probably ways to get similar
quality output with fewer hours by improving the workflow. I imagine if they
made tens of thousands of dollars per video, or built a large brand of the
video's success, they wouldn't have felt like such a burden either.

~~~
ronilan
This was no failure.

“A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts”.

~~~
taytus
Except that it is. They say so themselves and also mention that is totally OK
with failing.

~~~
ronilan
Except that it isn’t. They say so themselves and also mention that “...Every
Frame a Painting ended up being both a personal and a professional success.”

Edit: and because “Vancouver never Plays Itself” (the phrase, the concept, the
idea) has transcended.

------
lonelappde
Trying to read that made me appreciate Tony's work to create video versions of
his essays.

I watched every EFaP video and never noticed Taylor existed. :-(

------
lunchables
>There is no such thing as free content on the Internet

[...]

>Everything costs something to make. If a person is putting out content for
free, that means they’re not getting paid for their time.

First of all, remember when people posted things on the internet just out of
our desire to share things? I certainly support Tony's decision to shut this
down - it is his decision to make, and no one should feel FORCED to create
content for free.

But second of all, doesn't the second commend contradict the first?

~~~
bryanrasmussen
the delightful ambiguity of English allows us to say such things as "Things
that are simple should be simple" and in context of describing design of
systems have it understood as Things that are simple to describe should be
simple to do.

In this case the ambiguity has allowed them to say That which is free is not
free, meaning that which is free to consume is not free to make.

I certainly remember people posting stuff on the internet for free out of
their desire to share. I also remember lots of those people over the years
shutting down their delightful sites because not having the time to keep doing
things for free, nor the money to pay for the hosting or other things like
that.

~~~
lunchables
>meaning that which is free to consume is not free to make.

I guess it depends on what cost you want to include? I create content "for
free" using my free time. Would you consider my mortgage, the cost of my
computer, etc, to be part of the cost, so it is not "free" ? I wouldn't,
because I would incur those costs whether or not I was making content "for
free".

>I certainly remember people posting stuff on the internet for free out of
their desire to share. I also remember lots of those people over the years
shutting down their delightful sites because not having the time to keep doing
things for free, nor the money to pay for the hosting or other things like
that.

Yes, more and more all the time - exactly my point. And like I said in my
original post, it is certainly there prerogative. If they don't enjoy it, they
should stop.

