We recently connected with Tony Landazuri and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Tony thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
Way before I ever had the thought of making videos I was making music. That’s always been my passion, and still the reason I do what I do now. My biggest struggle with pursuing a music career is the amount of money that you have to put into it. There’s always going to be cheap home studios, beats, and basic music videos that you can do on a budget, but I just always felt like that was my art and I didn’t ever want to sell myself short. I would always spend the extra money to get the best possible outcome, so my music would reach its full potential. Long story short, I was never able to be as consistent as I would’ve wanted to. Being consistent is probably the best way for anybody to be successful in anything. Ive always wanted to have something to do with music, even if not as an artist. I follow this page on Instagram called “QC Media”, and its without a doubt the biggest blog page putting a spotlight on the Tampa music scene. I just felt inspired to do my part in promoting the city like that as well, but I didn’t want people to feel like I was trying to copy QC Media. I wanted to promote music, but in a creative way. To be honest, the idea of the edits I do wasn’t my own. I actually came across someone doing them on Instagram. I loved the idea, so I tried to message the person so I could get one done to my own song. I never got a response back, so I figured “How hard could it be?”. Thats really how this all started. I wanted to pay for one and ended up teaching myself how to make them. The main difference is that most of the edits I’ve seen people make have a lot of violent clips that scare away marketing teams.. I make sure I use clips that can be marketed, and that makes it easier for artists and labels to work with me. I created an Instagram page with the simple name “Editz By Tonez” (Tonez is my artist name), and started doing free edit videos for every Tampa artist I could think of and tagging them. I knew I was on to something because every single artist, no matter how big, would tell me to send them the edits so they could post it. I started doing just Tampa artists, but I do everyone now. I just want promote good music. I think the people I work with know that I don’t do this for a quick buck. I’m not going to use just any clips in my videos and call it a day. My job is to bring their words to life, and I make sure I paint the picture as good as possible. I found something I could be consistent in and its really come a long way.
Tony, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Like I said, I used to be an artist making music, so automatically i always knew my career would revolve around music. It doesn’t matter if it was being an artist, producer, engineer, graphic designer, manager, etc. I just always knew it had something to do with music. Back when I used to make music I went on YouTube and basically watched so many tutorial videos until I learned how to use photoshop and make cover arts. That was my backup in case the artist thing didn’t work out. I think its because of my experience in photoshop that its been easier for to get into video editing. Even before I knew how to edit and animate I had an idea on how it was done. Its basically photoshop, but with video. Most of what I do now has just been from learning through videos, practice, and experience.
I started doing just meme edit videos in which I basically grab a lot of clips and gifs and put them together in a way that visualizes the lyrics word for word. I’m specific on the clips I use and how I use them. I use a lot of viral clips from movies, cartoons, and hip hop culture. The funniest edits are the ones where people people can relate to because of a classic movie or a cartoon they used to watch as a kid. I now make lyric videos and I’m trying to dive more into animation, but the Editz are definitely still the people’s choice.
The main problem I would say I solve for clients is providing a creating way to promote their music. Sometimes artists don’t have the budget for a $1,500 music video, so I provide an alternate, less expensive option. Instead of uploading an mp3 on YouTube with the cover art showing for 2 minutes, you can upload an edit version of it so your fans can have a more entertaining experience.
The thing I’m most proud of is the people I’ve been able to reach. There’s so many big name artists that I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Most of these artist are people I’ve already been fans of in real life, so its a huge blessing that I don’t take for granted.
Is there a mission driving your creative journey?
I know it sounds kind of cliche, but my main goal is to create a music platform where I can help artists promote their music to the world. As of right now the main places I post and work with people are on Tik Tok and Instagram. Thats mainly because I want to create a large community on there first before I start to branch out and make something more established like a podcast or show. The main service I provide at the moment is making videos, but I want to get to the point where I can make you a video and then promote it and give you a huge boost. I have a lot of artists, managers, record labels, etc. who will see your video when I post it, but I don’t have the fan base yet to make a video go viral. I get closer to that point with every video I make and its just a matter of time before I’m able to provide real promotional services for people.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Unlike making music, the best part about making edits is that the only thing it takes for me to create them is time and effort. I don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars every time I want to put out a video. Its allowed me to be as consistent as I want to be, and I’ve often found myself spending long nights to make more content. The funniest thing to me is how many real videographers would message me saying they have no idea how I create these videos. I’ve only told like 3 people because they directly asked me what software I use, assuming I would say adobe something. Literally every edit I’ve done so far has been on my phone. I didn’t have a fast computer for video editing, so I looked through so many apps to see which had the most capabilities. I never really put it out there like that unless someone asked, but Ive always felt proud of the fact that I was able to start something like this off my phone. Ive invested money I’ve made to get a Mac so that now I’m actually able to create the ideas I have. I would have good ideas, but you can only do so much on a phone. Now I feel like if I think it I can definitely create it.
The crazy thing is that even though now I can make better videos with the equipment I have, the simple edits I could do on my phone are still the top seller.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: EditzByTonez
- Twitter: EditzByTonez
- Youtube: YouTube.com/editzbytonez
- Other: Tik Tok: EditzByTonez