Editing, editing, and more editing...

Oyyyy....

This is my life right now.  The picture tells the story.

That's the truth behind all the fancy movies and TV shows you love to watch.  A couple guys (sometimes more, almost never less) locked in a basement or a bedroom with a 'Final Cut' system arduously, painstakingly, never-endingly working their way through crafting an episode or a film--making something from next to nothing.

As I pulled up to my editor's place yesterday (or was it the day before?) I had this moment where I realized that if I am to be successful in this new phase of my life (the producer/director phase) I had better get used to spending endless hours in edit suites.

(seriously, I'm fantasizing about what kind of leather couch I'm gonna' put in my suite once I 'make it'...)

And it's not like I haven't put in my time already.  Dude, I was supervising edits back when all we had was online reel to reel...

Yes, I was your friendly neighborhood tyrannical teenaged producer.

But seriously, this is where we live.  Sweating it out, hour by hour, working working working to try and find the best way to say a thing or show a thing.  Fixing things that don't work, making things up when there's no way to fix it, endlessly trying to keep ourselves entertained and fed long enough so that we'll be able to finish the race.

Sounds an awful lot like the dozens of hours your average preacher spends each week, alone in his office sweating blood to try and come up with a sermon that's worth the salt.

I often wonder what it is that drives people like that to do what they do.  I mean, you've got to be pretty possessed and absorbed to fritter away endless hours of your life in a dark room while the rest of the world chills at the beach.

And I guess, when it all comes down to it, I already answered my question...

They're possessed.

Of a passion, a drive, an ambition, a need to tell a story or tell THE story and tell it right.  Tell it in such a way that it connects, makes a difference, impacts the audience, turns darkness to light.

That's why we put up with day upon day of pizza and coke (with a little bourbon thrown in from time to time just to keep it 'live'...) and night upon night of late to bed and morning after morning of early to rise--because we love to tell the story.

No amount of money or fame or respect or praise would be enough to compensate you for the pure drudgery of doing this part of the job.

You've got to do it because you must.

No other reason will do.

'Cause it's just the editor and the pizza and you.

T