look mom i'm becoming an editor...

i've been working a lot. i'm ok with that, i'm learning a lot. monday i started editing another short for sidewalk. i'll have two shorts that i've edited in the festival this year. the one that i've been working on, "waiting," has really been fun. the screenplay originally written by a student at alabama, i think, as an exercise in character development, but then was entered in the festivals "sidewrite" competition. it won and as part of the deal sidewalk recruited people to make the short. sidewalk recruited a very talented dp (director of photography) to work with the young writer and get the film shot. but that never really panned out so now it's been rewritten by another very talented writer/director. (these two guys met when the writer hired the shooter to film a short that will hopefully be premiering at sundance or cannes...these guys ain't playin around) anyway long story short, my boss agreed to edit it about a year ago, but because he's been so busy i took it on. i was a little nervous at first, like i said, these guys actually know what they're doing, i'm just faking it, but i think i've done ok. today we finished the rough cut. this morning the director was out working on some other things and the dp was preoccupied with some other stuff so i was just cutting away all by myself and i turned out two scenes cut just the way i wanted to, no extra frames for this or that reason, no different angle because of this or that and lo and behold... everyone loved them. two people watching one of the scenes at different times both said it was the scene that made the film... they said it gave them goosebumps. i felt like an editor then. most of the time i just feel like i'm pushing buttons and filling in the blank spaces. it felt good to have my thoughts and emotions about this one scene translate to the viewers. especially considering the viewers. i think i might make a career out of this stuff. all this movie stuff is gonna catch on one of these days, people are really gonna dig it.

windows are great...

i love windows, and that is not a reference to pc operating systems manufactured by microsoft, i'm talking about the kind that i get to look through from my new edit suite. i've been working the new job for 3 days. day 1 i stayed until 8:30. day 2 10. today... its 6 now and i'm on my way out. there's a lot to be done, and its only going to get more busy. its a good thing (martha stewart voice). i really do love doing this kind of work and i'm loving the new company. the clients talk to me when they come in. jokes are made, people laugh, my boss is always here later than me working his arse off. its a good place. but again i like the windows. my windows overlook the prairie fire grill (think thats what its called). i can see the fosters beer sign all day long. i also have some nice trees with little white flowers on them that meet me at eye level in my second floor edit haven. the view is not always great though, today i saw a lady crying on the bench right underneath the fosters sign. she had a wedding ring on her finger so i assumed the guy that was trying his best to not deal with her was her husband. eventually he walked away, shortly she followed. i wondered what she was doing with him. maybe he isn't such a bad guy. she could be pretty mean herself. who knows? either way it made me sad for the two of them. maybe happier things will be there for me to observe and create my own scenarios for tomorrow. if not there are still the trees for me to smile at.