An Evening for My Valentine (Patreon)

Rediscovering video creation as an art form 

"Never make art out of obligation", as one of you guys put it - I was inspired to make this goth af profession of love by the man who awakens the poetry in me. The words came naturally, the rhythm flowing smooth as the currents of the ocean. The imagery revealed itself to me one by one and the sounds tempered tingles and magic into one transcendental soundscape that borders between physical and ethereal. My Pisces Venus is in full bloom thanks to this project. 

Seems my videos are taking on an increasingly dreamy vibe and I'm loving it. It all started when my husband got me a laptop powerful enough to render a video with glow effects. Glow effects make everything better. They take an OK clip to the next level for creating an other-worldly experience to get lost in. Ever since I've been able to utilize glow effects along with various other color editing tools (one of my recent favorites is Broadcast Colors for creating a vintage, sometimes 80's porno effect), I've been having a blast creating imagery that looks like how I see things (as opposed to what my camera sees). In this particular video I've superimposed "rose colored glasses" over the otherwise dark, red and black video. I wanted to create an ambiance so romantic and mesmerizing that you can't help being sucked into this dreamy fantasy. I'm particularly fond of the sounds I was able to create playing with rose petals all around the 3dio, though the scalp massage with a synthetic wig is probably the highlight for all you tingle lovers. Scalp and back massages are in fact some of Jack's favorite triggers. The cider is a play on the mixed drinks we made on our honeymoon when the hotel gave us free champagne (we no like wine) and we mixed it with cider we bought which made it much better. So of course I had to include close up fizzy bubbling sounds, calmly ringing inside a gorgeous glass. 

The fun thing about recording the voiceover and sound effects separately is that I can use the sounds I like the best while also using the props that look the best. These brandy glasses, while, gorgeous, made very mediocre sounds. The actual glass and pouring sounds you hear, you can attribute to my wonderful cat glasses. They create a subtle ringing with fizzy drinks that is on a different level. 

This subtle ringing is what opened up the door wide for drones and chimes that subtly accentuate parts of the video. You'd be surprised the things you can do with generic sound effects from the audio library and time stretch, pitch shift and reverb effects. It's a nice way to spice up parts that are "kinda boring" compared to other, more tingly parts with layered sounds like the whispering and massages. Not sure why I'm going on about video editing effects, maybe it's because I'm discovering so much through experimentation. While I am impatient to refine my art, I love the things I'm finding I can make out of raw materials. In the beginning I used to be so upset when I couldn't replicate sounds exactly, but the more I experiment with my videos, the more I find that it doesn't really matter. As long as the end result is vaguely in sync with the image, you'd be surprised at the liberal use of props and creative freedom you can get away with. And most of the time it's better if it doesn't sound exactly like the original, as the original audio is littered with people watching TV at 2AM and pissing every 5 minutes. The joys of apartment life. More about that in the outtakes!

I am once again shocked at how long it takes to make a halfway decent video. I was gonna surprise my husband with this on Valentines Day but this whole thing took easily 70 hours to put together and - I could keep working on it. That's the thing with art... You can work on a single piece indefinitely. At some point you just have to put an end to it and call it finished. But art is never really finished. It evolves with every passing minute, every new skill gained, effect discovered and inspiration ignited. I find myself wanting to go back and "work on" all of my old videos - if only I had the time to perfect each one. But at one point, the creations I now look at as so infantile and unrefined were the best I could do. And with the short time I am given on this planet, I can't spend all of it reworking things I called finished ages ago. The best I can do now is apply my knowledge and passion to future creations so as to look back in a year or two and wish I had the skills now that I will have then. And it is so that creation finds its meaning and purpose in evolution, for perfection would imply death. Death is endedness. But as art itself is a living thing, it is reborn again and again everytime it dies. Reborn from the ashes of the last finished video. Reborn through the stargate of a new perspective. Ignited by desire, molded by a vision and composed by all the elements of nature. 

I want to make videos I love. That's the thing I've been missing for all these years, led astray by what I've seen other people make. I'm starting to shed the first impression I had of how ASMR videos are supposed to look and now I finally feel free to express my own soul like I always meant to. If you find yourself struggling with creative block, my advice is to examine all the limitations you put on yourself for what you "should" be doing. Examine them for their validity. Most of that which holds people back is trying to fit a predetermined mold - and sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it. I've come to learn there is a world of a difference between the image I wanted to present as and the kind of art my soul wants to express. My soul wants to dance, it wants to burn, wants to bring things to life - and every day I'm not doing that for whatever reason *cough*masking*cough* is a day I'm not living my purpose. Is a day I'm not alive. And don't you know it is exhausting to live as a corpse. No, I am done. 

I wish I could go back in time and say this to everyone who laughed at me and put me down: 

Y'all fuckers never get to kill my fire ever again. 

This video marks the liberation of my soul