[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s The State of Show Business: “The Art of Staying Focused.”
Lately, I have found myself in a very uncomfortable place. I just spent a month in Ireland directing a feature that was only a concept a year earlier. Then, when I arrived back in Los Angeles, I had two days to recover from jet lag and act in a film as the main character for the next six days. And one of those days was a night shoot. Needless to say, my body clock is still trying to recover. I know what you are thinking. Poor me, I got to direct a film in one of the most beautiful places on the planet and then I got a job as the main character on a fully budgeted film. Woo is me.
My dilemma does not come from working back to back. Nor is it about being tired and not being on Pacific Standard Time. My dilemma is that after six weeks of being employed in a profession that I love, I suddenly find myself with the aftermath of what came before. I have about 13 days of footage to log and look through, and make decisions about what takes are good enough to make it to the second round of post. It is a big job and I just don’t know where to start.
So, I devised a plan that I would look through the footage with my producing partner, but she is not available until the end of September. I suppose I could go through it alone and then when she returns we can get straight into building a first cut. But, that is where I find myself unfocused and feeling unprepared to tackle such a grand task. This film is important in so many ways and I am afraid that I may not be good enough to do the film justice. Every artist that I have ever known, including myself, has these feelings of doubt, inadequacies, and sheer terror that they may not have a film among the takes. But, maybe my apprehension about starting the process is not about confidence, but maybe it is about the simple action of starting.
Once I get going, I usually find my way through these negative thoughts and do the task at hand. Perhaps is it the simple fact of shutting my phone off, firing up the three monitors, and placing my hand on the trackpad and clicking? Could it be as simple as that? It is not necessarily feeling like I don’t have a film. I think that sometimes I am afraid to commit wholly to something I have created not because it might be bad. But, maybe because I believe it to be good. Very good, and I don’t want to mess it up. There’s only one way to find out. I’ll be in the editing room if you need me.