Sunday, May 07, 2006

Powerless

Researching some editing system equipment. It gives me a headache. Gear. Gear. Gear.
I realy just want to tell stories as a writer and director. Editing is a huge part of filmmaking and I've done a fair bit of it. What I'm always left with it the urge to reshoot or come up with a new project.
I worked as part of team that cut a feature called Evergreen. The film had its moments as well as its problems. It made it to into the Sundance Competition and had a limited release. Anyway the editor, our leader and teacher, was Meg Reticker. She's cut some good stuff, Heavy, Wet Hot American Summer, Decade Under the Influence, and is a really awesome person. After working with me for six weeks, she discouraged my further pursuit of editing as a career. Not for reasons of incompetence, but more because of temperament. (Which was pretty arrogant and ugly in retrospect) You're a director, she said.
Several unfinished projects later - I'm left with facing the editing phase of filmmaking. Melissa Henderson is on deck to cut But A Dream. Originally we were to go to Downstream and do an offline on the Avid. That was going to cost $500 for two eight hour sessions. She has agreed to cut on my system provided I am patient with her adapting to Final Cut Pro. I'm not as proficient on FCP as I once was, but I'm sure between the two of us we'll be fine.
As for FCP. I started cutting on it when it first came out and crashed every two or three minutes. Boy that was fun. Still it was awesome to have the tools to learn how to cut movies in a spare bedroom. I've never purchased a copy of FCP through it's several versions. I started on 1.2.5, switched to 2 then 3. We cut Evergreen on 3. 4 came out, but I was deep into the rewriting of Original Glory as well as trying to figure out how to write a good short script. I got 4.5 last year from someone and 5 just recently. FCP 5 burn that I got doens't have hte supporting discs and therefore is not loading. I ditched FCP 4.5 HD before trying to load 5. I am now void of Final Cut Pro on my machine for the first time in six years.
I'm thinking it might be time to actually buy it. It's the right thing to do. But somehow I feel like a fool.
Then there's the whole RAID, SATA, Firewire question. TetraGiga - ugh.
And Capture Cards.
And HD.
I spent hours on the net this am looking up reviews and user group info on this crap.
What I would rather do is write the scene I've been researching. And direct it.
After I direct it, I will want to direct another. I get that taste. Sitting in front of the editing station makes me want to get back on set.
Meg was right.
However, I am going to have to start finishing films.
Is there a 12 step group for this?
Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our films that had been shot and that our reels had become unmanagable.

Debolemente,
Signore Direttore

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