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I'd like to start a conversation about the (imho) most overlooked aspect of demo-making: how we present information over time - aka: editing.

There's this very german thing that makes me cringe all the time: when people stupendously clap to every beat in music. Transforming any song into a marching chime.

There's a very strong Demoscene equivalent to this: Rotating stuff straight forward to bassdrums. Or flashing the screen to that. I get it's the most obvious thing to do, and it also makes sense on many occasions. However, I feel that the vocabulary of motion and transitions in Demos don't go far beyond that. Which also presents a great opportunity for doing things differently.

To start the conversation, I'd like to share with you a video by the editor of Dune:

Why Dune's editing feels different

This video is about continuity of time and information. And furthermore breaks visual rhythm into more intricate parts. Like eye-movement. A lot of it can be applied to making demos as well.

I'm applying a lot of these things to producing soundtracks as well. Which can be found for example in Debris and Calcifer. At the same time, I always felt that the way scenes are presented are too strictly bound to obvious seperation.

I'm also sure a lot of you are also interested in this, maybe even feel a bit stuck in the box of doing the usual over and over again. Please share your thoughts, resources, ideas - and let's learn something new :)

Thanks for the video link, very interesting video indeed.
Another film, which makes great use of interesting editing techniques to tell it's story and evoke emotions on a more meta, unspoken, visual level is Ghost in the Shell (the original anime), here's a nice video analyzing it.

It's a super interesting topic to me as well. At university I had the chance to take a side course regarding digital media, and when we were asked to try out some of the editing techniques, such as continuity, montages, match cuts etc, I came up with this little piece, which was great fun to do. The concept was to take clips of japanese monster films, piece them together and tell a different story not involving any monsters actually in a coherent way.

Flash + Bounce yay!

Flash + Bounce = no no. Let people form their own rhythm and flow in their head instead of forced adhd untz fest :)

depends on what you wanna do.

if you like to do some artsy fartsy or cinematic-type stuff then I agree.

however, if you want to do demos the effects+in-your-face-way-of-thing, then no need.
in this case i love the flashing (or the haujobb way of shaking the screen).
second reality is still a masterclass in demo flow and pacing. as are many c64 demos.

and your audience at parties is mostly drunk.
know your audience.
heavy bass drum.
flash the screen.
profit.

Well here's one simple principle I've followed: Beats and camera cuts don't mix. Make the cut a couple of seconds before or after a new bar in your song starts. Unless you really wish to underline connection between the new shot and some sound effect, for instance. Usually you don't, so it's less confusing to separate them.

If the audio is room ambience and not music then it makes sense to do the cuts in sync.

Unless it's that kind of an edit you're going for.

It really depends what you're trying to achieve. I haven't found a rule of thumb, but I've noticed that in some cases cutting on the beat is the obvious thing to do, while in other cases it's too jarring. When that happens I usually need several tries before I find a cut that feels right, not too close but not too far, discreet but not boring either.

What cce said. I tried some new approaches in Transhuman/Pachinkoland and followed a strict "no-sync" or even "anti-sync" approach for a long time, to give the demo room to breathe and develop naturally, tried to edit on atmosphere alone. We switched musics frequently, and for long stretches I edited with sound disabled. But the too obvious syncs always started to creep in, because there are so many places in the music that demand visual response, if you want it or not. Ultimately I think I failed in this demo, but I learned a lot from this.

@Bifat, you didnt fail, what is seen on the screen is a great new TEK demo! Only if you are to perfectionistic for yourself imho u might think u failed..

I tend to make things like this: compose a pop tune that consists of structural blocks of 4 or 8 bars. Then add some visuals where things happen aligned to that time block grid. The demo parts end up being something like verses or lines in a song. In the visuals, 1 time unit = 1 musical bar. In 4/4 musical time, one beat is 0.25 time units. Multiply time by 4 for a beat clock.

just make it flash on every second beat

lutschilutschilutsch

as if I had any bytes left to make it flash off-beat and now y'all telling me this

How about a more continuous approach to building and transitioning between scenes? Letting some objects hang into the the next scene instead of switching everything from screen to screen? How about letting things traverse across the screen instead of fading stuff in and out? How about using camera movement in a more directed manner to create direction? Instead of static ones?

There are so many ways to create visual interest and continuity that are easily overlooked most of the time.

More natural camera movement is something I always wanted to do ever since I first saw Doom in 1993/94. Maybe one day.

Regarding time, we found that letting things on for double than what you initially intended, and thus giving it some time to grow, often works surprisingly well. We first did this in Beam Riders.

Check out David Lynch's 2nd Twin Peaks. Every single minute is worth it, and it's only getting better towards the end. E.g. compare the night drive with Fritz Lang's version in Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933). There are things at work here on a profound level, although I don't fully understand them yet. Like an infant, I can try to mimic some effects, which is especially difficult on a machine with severe restrictions, and yet it's endlessly inspirational, to me at least.

I'm just a sucker for (c:a) 1993 style transitions. When they reflect the music, magic happens. See E.G. Rink a Dink Redux. Of course this doesn't fit all aesthetics but when it does, it's a wonderful visual device and one I believe to be fairly unique to the scene.

This is an amazing topic, as it does not get discussed nearly enough, even though it matters a lot. Working on an old-school platform, we have severe limitations in what we can show and do, but even there editing matters a lot, maybe even more than it matters on bigger platforms. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any significant effort to analyse and think about the editing in demos.

Editing in film is not really the same, as it is a longer form and also because in film they have (compared to us) unlimited assets, so tend to work on a higher conceptual level. In a typical old-school production it tends to be nearly impossible to do more complex types of montage. So, for inspiration, I personally just watch a lot of music videos, where editing can often be very exiting and the variety of approaches is massive. If you know of any books or papers or anything else on the theory of editing in music videos - that would probably be nearest to what we want to do. Are there any?

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that clapping in Western music mostly should be on 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. (Not all music, but most. If you don't feel the beat, simply don't clap.)

If you don't feel the beat, it needs more cowbell.

Always used the porno movies binary recipe: action, transition, action, transition, etc.

Like this: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=52360?

"excuse me mister, but can you please come over to fix my rendering pipeline?"

Although not a route for everyone, I think I found a good solution in wildflOwer and it is one that I'm going to continue for a whole series for upcoming demos. Although technically more a directing trick than an editing one: just don't use music that follows a musical structure. Use bits and pieces, fragments and samples instead. I learned a lot from the way Spacepigs handles editing, although they often don't use music at all: this gives even more room to explore new ways of editing.

This as well. Solid tip right here since the music forces you into a certain frame of reference, making you lose sight of the big picture. (Hence why I don't like to make demos with a 'regular' soundtrack anymore). I always edit both with sound on and off. Obviously before release I'll do a series of walkthroughs with the sound on, as to avoid any edits that feel off.

Thanks for the Dune link. Also worth mentioning:
Every Frame A picture
Now You see it