Don’t Worry, We’ll Fix It In Editing

The death knell of many a good tale

You’re finally ready to tackle that new recipe you’ve had your eye on. All the ingredients are set out on the counter, the oven is preheated to the appropriate temperature, and the instructions are at your fingertips.

When you’ve finished following every guideline to a tee, you're rewarded with a lovely new dish for your repertoire.

Well, it’s good. The recipe comes out looking exactly as expected, but when you taste it for the first time, something just seems to be missing.

Not quite to your particular taste. Ok, no problem. It was just a first attempt. You know your way around a spice rack. Next time you’ll amp up the flavour a bit.

Exploring your creative side you add a little pinch here, a dash there. That original recipe over time will evolve into something you can truly call your own creation. Now you’re ready to delight family and guests with a culinary marvel.

But wait!

Something has gone horribly wrong. When you retrieve that signature dish from the oven this time, you’re presented with a hot steamy mess. WTF? How could it all go so horribly wrong? It never looked like this before.

Ok. No reason to panic. You still have time to save it, and it’s done, well you’ll just call it something else instead. No one will be the wiser.

If any of this story sounds to you like your writing process, then you are not alone. How many times have you planned out a story, an article, or a poem piece by piece, only to read it back to yourself and say, “What is this s**t?”

Despite all your meticulous preparation, life doesn’t always throw roses back in your face. Sometimes it’s…well, you get the picture.

Time to dig into some serious editing, you say. All well and good. You know what your intent was with this piece. It just needs a little readjustment.

The first time I went through this very struggle was in my final year of film school. The entire term’s mark was based on your producing, writing, and directing a ten to fifteen-minute film of your own creation. Since I’d spent the entire previous summer with a leg in a cast, (another story for another time), I had plenty of time to write and prepare for my opus.

An idea conjured in my substance infused head, and I began to write. I kept writing and rewriting for another two months. I thought I had finally extracted a clear vision for my story, so I committed it to a final script.

The school year began and I set to work on constructing my masterpiece, whilst collaborating on works by my fellow students, as expected.

Locations were secured, an appropriate amount of film stock was purchased, and a shooting schedule was firmly in place, all by my own hand. Feeling confident, I set about documenting my future award winner. with the help of my carefully chosen classmates.

Photography went on with the usually expected hiccups here and there, but within a couple of months, I had it all ‘in the can’. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. Time to book the editing suite.

When constructing a film in editing for the first time, it’s much like writing your first draft. Following the original script, you splice together every scene in what is called, a rough cut.

Getting a rough cut completed allows you to view a full-length sample of your original vision, kind of like the culmination of that recipe I mentioned earlier.

I turned on the flatbed, with picture and dialogue tracks synced up and sat back to watch the fruit of my labours. The first time through it’s best just to sit back and watch. There will be plenty of opportunities to go back through each scene, looking for places to tighten up or add a little spice.

About twelve minutes later, the viewing screen went dark, and so with it went my mood. This film, this thing on my editing table, had baked itself into a hot steamy pile of…POO!

I must have paced the halls of that school for three hours that night. What the hell was I going to do? How could I save my film, my baby, my school year?

It was close to Christmas break, so I decided to let the problem incubate for the two weeks I’d be away from the project. It’s always good to let things lay for a bit. Get a new perspective on the situation.

I returned refreshed and ready to dig in.

Strips of film started to fly all over the editing room. Like a mad scientist, I started to splice and resplice segments with a wild abandon. I emerged from the darkened hollows of my suite three days later.

I had not slept the entire time.

It was around 4 a.m., I’m not sure what day it was, but I met another student in the hallway I had never met before. She must have sensed my distress so she asked me if I would join her for breakfast.

“Breakfast? Uh,…sure, why not?” We stumbled off to the local diner where the evening ladies congregate after a night’s work. Usually very entertaining, but on this day I was in a fog. The cops could have raided the place and I would still be there sliding hot coffee, eggs and bacon down my gullet.

Over our meal, I tried to relate to this stranger my plight. Even in my sleep-deprived haze, it did not go amiss this was a beautiful young woman sitting across from me, which is probably why I completely got on board when she said, “Don’t worry. That’s why there’s editing. We can fix it.”

We toiled for two more weeks, breaking down the film and putting back together again. Between edits, a brief but very satisfying love affair sprouted.

The print was so over-spliced, it started splintering in my hands. I ordered a fresh print. I must have cut that picture a dozen times. It still came out like crap, because in retrospect, it began that way.

It could have been a good story, but there just wasn’t enough substance. By the time I had logged it all on film, there wasn’t enough to save.

The heat cooled on the romance, and I managed to cobble together a semblance of a finished product to present to my prof. No choice.

When the time came for final viewing of student productions, they were displayed on a full-size motion picture screen in the university’s main auditorium. Parents and guests were invited to enjoy the creative works by twenty-five students of the graduating class.

Some efforts were met with polite applause, while others were cheered loudly for their cinematic expertise.

I can’t possibly tell you what the reaction to my final cut was, because I was busy cowering under my seat at the time.

I did receive some interesting commentary as I left the building that day. Mostly, they politely told me how ‘unusual’ my film was. One even ventured to offer, “that was very brave”. Curious.

In the end, my opus resembled none of my initial vision, and to be honest, I can’t remember what that vision was. Though I felt embarrassed to present it publically, it was deemed good enough to earn me my degree, for whatever that’s worth anyway.

It took me a while to come to terms with the reality that where I went wrong was that my original story didn’t have a strong foundation, to begin with. I was too young and inexperienced then to understand why I was doomed from the start.

If the fundamental elements aren’t there in the first place, there is no way to gloss it over. I’ve experienced too many films since where someone’s tried to fix the film in editing, almost always with disastrous results.

Of course, in Hollywood, that shlock gets exhibited anyway. There’s a lot of money to recoup. Discerning film viewers can always tell the difference though.

Try as you might come editing time, if your first draft doesn’t flow from your mind onto the page, you probably never had a story. All the editing in the world won’t fix something that started broken.

I’m a firm believer now in the power of the stream of consciousness. When I have an idea. I write. When I’m done, if there’s a story, there won’t be a lot of tweaking to do because I’ve fleshed it out in my head before committing it to the page.

I’m sure everyone’s process is different, but I’m one who won’t be relying on ‘fixing it in editing’ to turn my turds into blossoming flowers. Editing has its function, certainly, but it should never be to save the work.

As always, thanks for taking the time. I hope you enjoyed my tale about the creative process. Here’s a couple more you might like.