Thursday, November 29, 2007

Peter, Steven and Mary Ann

Steven Soderbergh is the hardest working man in show business. My god, what doesn't this guy do? He shoots his movies as Peter Andrews. He edits them as Mary Ann Bernard. So he often works all day wearing many hats - producer, director, writer, DP, camera operator - then he cuts it together at night. All this after going out for dinner with leading man and producing partner George Clooney. The guy is tireless.
I've been watching K Street, a tv show he made a few years ago. I hadn't even heard of it until I came across it in some obscure way. It's pretty good. It's too subtle and raw for network television. James Carville and Mary Matalin play quasi-fictional versions of themselves. They also co-produced with Soderbergh and Clooney. It's all improvised and many Washington politicians and journalists make guest appearances.
Soderbergh is one of the main guys that I've long wanted to emulate in terms of being a very hands-on filmmaker, the kind of guy that does it all. And I can do it all pretty well, not anywhere near as well as him, but better than many of my peers. Recently I gave up on editing and turned a lot of it over to others. They're even slower than I am. I'm not slow, I just put off doing it. But even the few people that I've paid have been super slow about putting assemblies and rough cuts together. Then when I see it, I'm frustrated by it. London Calling has been about five total cuts from final for over a month but I can't get together with that editor for some reason. I'm debating taking it over again, not just LC but all of them. I'm thinking of buying a new MacBookPro and doing it bit by bit on a daily basis instead of surfing sports and other internet distractions. I have a nice editing suite but the minute I go in there, my kids are underfoot pulling stuff off the shelves, climbing into my lap and attacking the keyboard. For some reason they leave me alone when I'm on my laptop. So we'll see. I'm over thinking any of my films are going to be very good, so at this point I just need to experience putting them together and moving on. Maybe I can be more like Steven/Mary Ann afterall.

Potenzialmente,
Signore Editore

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