Friday, September 11, 2009

Tweak or Not to Tweak

Tweaking, tweaking, tweaking. I sit down to edit the film's screenplay, reading transcript after transcript. Then I sit at the computer, moving clips around on the timeline. I'm finatical about how this story is told. To the point where I am annoying myself.

If this clip goes here, it leads to this next one well. People will be able to handle new information if it goes in this order. But this is important, too. No, this should go here instead. Ok, this clip is a little too hard to understand.

The conversations in my head as I edit this film are almost laughable. I debate with myself over where a certain clip should go, who should be seen first, who says the message most succinctly or with the right tone in their voice.

Claude Monet painted the same subjects repeatedly. Different times of days. Studying the light and change in color obsessively. I'm no Claude Monet, but I do feel his finaticism and how it can consume someone.

My dad listens to me tell him these things. That I have been obsessing over it too much, and need to stop tweaking it. Dad tells me, "There's a beginning, a middle and an end to everything. Find the end. Get it finished."

My friend asks about the film, and hears me say something similar. I keep tweaking. Why do I obsessively tweak?! She tells me, "There's no second film if you never finish your first."

Yes, these things I know all too well. I carry them with me daily. The pressure mounts every moment. I so deseperately want to finish this film, and share it with the world. It's pertinent, and timely. It needs to be seen, shared. Not because of anything I may have done, but because the plight of the Montagnards is important. And for so many other reasons.

Tweak, tweak, tweak. I must stop tweaking, and keeping moving on. There is so much left to do, and I must get myself out of the way of progress.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

-Claude Monet

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

I like this post. It speaks to the artist's constant striving for perfection: the novelist who publishes and then wants to edit, the actor who wants one more take, the artist, scraping the paint from the canvas, starting from scratch.

It's a fine line. Your family and friends are right. You are right. A professor of mine in college always suggested "Drawer Time" for our papers. Put it away for two or three days and come back with fresh eyes.

Keep it up.