The first time I sat down at a make shift editing station set up in my living room to edit my first film on my own I had no idea that it was going to begin a career. Since that project I have edited all my own projects. I've even moved out of the living room into the spare bedroom after turning it into my office.
It was that first time though that I was thinking about while driving home from seeing a movie and a song came over the radio that triggered all sorts of memories. I listened to that song over and over again while editing that film and it now sends me back in time to recall all the fun of that edit even with the many issues that popped up while cutting.
One of the first things you learn when making a film is that just because something sounds good on the page it doesn't mean it's going to work coming out of someones mouth. A line that killed when you were writing it causes people to giggle when spoken out loud by the actor. There were a ton of those kinds of lines in this flick and most of them were coming from the same character. What resulted was the need to cut our about half the lines of that character. Surprisingly it didn't harm the storytelling but there was a short period of time when I really didn't know what to do with all that dialogue that just wasn't cutting it.
I'll be honest. It's not my favorite project I've made. It's hard for me to look past all the mistakes I made. I give myself a little break due to the fact it was my first attempt at doing something substantial but it was definitely an eye opener that pushed me to do better the next time. It seems each project I do has a little bit of that push as well. Each time I try and make sure I'm doing something challenging to make sure I never get stagnant. I think that is the problem with a lot of filmmakers in the DIY scene. They figure they can be lazy since they aren't a studio production. Good enough is good enough for them.
For me it's not good enough. I kick myself every time I start thinking that something is "good enough". Ever since I sat and watched that first project play out and I started making the list in my mind of things I should have done better I've always pushed myself to do better each time I set out to do another project. So far I think I've done a good job of delivering better each time but that doesn't mean that I can stop. It just means I need to once again truthfully evaluate my work and ask the same old question of myself.
"Now what can I do to make this better?"
