SHOOTIN' FROM THE HIP - "THE EDITOR & THE UMBILICAL CORD"

Last Tuesday, a good friend came into my apartment and took my baby away from me...

Well, technically, it was his baby. He was the director-producer and I was just the editor. But after two years of editing while my friend was out shooting and producing content, I was the one probably closest to the material itself. It stayed in the same room I slept in, taking up more space than just two hard drives. It became my baby after a while, and that experience has led me to think of the editor's role as that of a surrogate parent or nanny, raising the child while daddy is out conducting business. And of course, once those ties are made, it becomes very hard in the end to simply let go.

Like a child's birth, the footage arrives to you a raw, bloody, screaming, confused mess. And like a good career-minded father, the director has no time for this; so he leaves it with you and simply says "Fix this." Hmm. Right... The first few months of this faux parenthood are rough, as I imagine real parenthood is. The unrealized film screams and spikes in your eardrums like a teething newborn in the middle of the night. And of course, there's definitely sh%$ to be cleaned up. Lots and lots of sh&^%.

But unlike the nurturing mother, the editing process isn't about nurturing. No, not at all. You gotta take this baby and cut that kid up. Oh yeah. Trim that flab, tone the muscles. In actuality, you're probably more like Geppetto shaping Pinocchio than say Sarah Connor raising her child to be a badass. It's a different kind of paternal relationship: sculpting as opposed to teaching.

And with time, once that little film starts realizing what it is (or developing "a spine" as the first editor I worked with called it). You teach it how to walk (through story motions at first), then run (so our bladders can keep up), but inevitably realize that there's only so much you can do. A film shouldn't just be edited well. An editor needs to identify the holes in his own work so that they might be smoothed over at a later date.... by someone else. That all takes time. And by time you're near picture-lock, even the slightest adjustment changes the course of your child's destiny, no matter how small. Your baby is barely recognizable by that point. Definitely not what showed on your doorstep in a basket.

 
And so comes that fateful day where there is literally nothing left for you to do; where whatever is left is beyond your abilities. That is the day you are done and, like some bad TV drama, father's coming to collect his child... And he's not even taking your baby back home! Oh no. He's taking him to some place where groups of men will poke and prod, and tinker, and toy with him until your baby is ready for the world to see. Oh yeah. All the clothes you bought him and the haircuts you gave him aren't good enough. This baby needs to be like a Baby Charlie Chaplan, or Annie, or Beauty Pageant Kid, prepped and ready for the spotlight for millions to see like a f*&%ing puppet show... That's exactly how it feels.

Either way, as soon as those drives and USB sticks leave the editing suite, that's that. Your role as editor/surrogate parent is over. Now what do you do? I suppose real parents ask themselves the same  when their kids go off to college. Working on another film might be easier than up and having another kid... I think I'll do that instead.