With frost and lusty leaves quite gone

What is this, 2003 again? I did a shoot on Tuesday and had edits finished by 6:00PM Wednesday. I haven’t turned around on my own projects like this in years. And I’m still going. Today will be a greenscreen shoot and then that will get edited and finalized before the end of next week. For this greenscreen shoot, I re-wrote the scripts last night with a lot of feedback from my roommate Mike. All my verb tenses are now correct, and the wording is a lot better. Ego therapy for me is accepting that since nothing I have ever made has truly “hit” with audiences, I need to listen to other people’s opinions more. That means listening to other writers’ ideas, trust in those more than my own sometimes.

I have had such validation this week. From someone actually complimenting me as a director to accolades as an editor and finally someone’s mother said I was great on camera from seeing FRAMELINES on TV where I did a Tech Tip.

I plan on making a lot more Interactive Tutorials, doling out the raw footage as I have in a few past projects. I think this will be fun, effective, and a great way to teach as well. It’s a win for everyone. Some people need footage to edit, to practice, and to see. It is promotional for the show, and for the people involved, as the actors and crew have to be credited if people use the footage.

This feels fantastic. I’m still editing on this other short for Bob Bates, a local filmmaker too. The fluid nature of editing means coming up with new ideas and tweaks up until the film escapes your clutches for a screening, and even then that’s not necessarily the end. Lord knows, public screenings have affected edits for me in the past. It’s your true test of the cut to put it in front of people.

I feel it in my bones, 2016 is my year. The blood in my veins pumps with energy and creativity. For years I have struggled to get back to where I was in 1999-2005, completely sated by making movies, feeling whole. Making movies, helping others make their movies, being completely enveloped in the process; these things added a vibrancy to each and every day. I am starting to get back to that. I’m trying hard to stick to that.

So far, so good.

“Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?”
– David Bowie