Metsa Metsa
You know, when I took my current job, I knew, and I mean that in every sense of the word, I KNEW that it wouldn't be the most creative. I viewed it as the kind of job where, hey, do it for awhile, rack up the experience as an actual editor (not tape librarian, E2, what have you) but EDITOR and then see where you are in a year or two. I think somehow in my little pea brain I thought I would do something more interesting after that point. Doc work, series television, what have you.
And then I remembered the guys I worked with at Hearst-Argyle Television Productions. We did 5 nationally syndicated television series, and the thing about series tv is that it's highly forumulaic. Once the formula is down that first season, it's rare to deviate from what works. I do recall asking the 2 main editors why they were doing what they were doing, and both times the response was "I like telling stories". Now at the time I took this at face value and didn't think too much about it, but as time's gone on, it's sat in my brain and nibbled here and there. Documentary series (stuff like HGTV, TLC type stuff) is a grown up game of show and tell. There's creativity involved, but it's not like scripted narratives.
And truth be told, telling stories in the doc series world, and yes, industrial video work, is a bit boring. Some days it can be boring as shit. Some days you agonize over what shot to choose to illustrate this one "tell" and you're screaming to some b-roll god to give you the shot that you need, but hey, even he can't materialize shots out of the ether. And some days you realize that it ain't gonna get any better than this for some time, so buck up and suck up.
Thank christ I'm also an independent filmmaker and have the opportunity to edit my own creations, or have enough connections to edit the creations of others. Ok, the creations of other people who I know do good work ;) I'm a selective editor biatch!
So yeah, today was one of those days where it was a PITA to embrace the boring. Every now and then it's tough to "own" the boring. You just wanna get it done. You want to go home. You want to ignore the fact that many many many people might end up seeing what you edit. You want to ignore the fact that your clients or bosses might not like the cut you love. And you definitely want to ignore the bad edits of others that makes your skin crawl, but shit, it did make your skin crawl so clearly you still care about editing the boring shit.
Werd for coming full circle!
Speaking of editing, I just saw the movie The Queen. I rarely use this term to describe a movie, but it was MAGNIFICENT. Utterly and completely. I liked this movie for several reasons, but here are some of the top ones
1- It made me laugh. And it's a very serious movie. I like making movies that make people laugh. Nearly everything I cut will have a least one laugh in there, and this had many many laughs. It was a very nice example of pacing to alleviate some of the pervading heavy emotions in the movie.
2- The use of silence. Silence, as I'm fond of saying, is very underrated by today's filmmakers. Silence is extremely powerful. And The Queen uses silence quite well. There's one particularly powerful scene where the nat sound gradually fades and you're left with the character coming to a realization. No words, just guesstures and looks. Incroyable.
Could be a movie of the year nod too. Who knows?
posted by the post girl in dc @ 10:12 PM
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