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• In the rabbit hole.

  Wednesday, May 21, 2008 9:41PM / Standard Entry / Members only
  12 comments

  It's been many moons since I blog... partly I'm lazy and there isn't much to report, partly I'm working WAY too much and there is so much to write that I don't know where to begin... many filmmakers can tell you, post-production is a whole different beast to conquer.  Thinking takes time, editing takes time, digesting the edits takes time, and re-edit the edits takes time, and then back to thinking about the re-edits...  the cycle never ends.  And if you're like me, who likes to perfect every cut, down to nudging 1 frame at a time... then you're in seriously trouble.  Walter Murch wrote about his experience on editing "Apocalypse Now" - that it averages out a whole day to do 1.47 cut.  Nowadays, films tend to have about 500-800 cuts, so you do the math. 
  
  Editing at home was still okay, at least I can see and feel the change of day.  But when you get to the stage where you have to work in the studio to online etc... I just completely lost track of time.  So many times I went into the picture or sound studio room, and because it's sound/light proof, I walked in during the day and came back out at night, or vice versa, walked in at night and came out to find myself blasted by sunlight.  It's so disorienting... I had no idea what time it was, where I was, I even forgot the name of my film once...  Sometimes I feel like I'm Alice...
  
  Filmmaking is such a strange and unnatural way of making art, because we have to work on the picture and audio elements separately, so I still haven't seen the film as a complete whole, not until we put the two elements together.  And in the meantime, you just pray that they'll go well together, and you make others to believe that you know what you're doing...  so you just smile and nod (and hide the fact that you actually forgot the name of your film...)
  
  This is just a glimpse of the "director" side, meanwhile, if you're also the producer, then you have to also deal with all the legal and admin stuff - the gazillion emails that you *have* to answer that day.  So you might end up writing an email to the music publisher while looking at / listening to your film and giving instructions to the technicians to tweak the film all AT THE SAME TIME.  Sometimes I seriously wish that I have a clone.
  
  So for those who wonder where and how the heck I've been, I'm sorry that I've been MIA for so long, and for missing the awesome AnD anniversary party, and for missing Mother's Day (thank goodness for 1800-flowers... I know I know...)  AND I was so bummed that I've been so busy and had to miss Olafur Eliasson's exhibition at MOMA!!  Argh...
  
  Strobe lights shine on the curtain of water droplets, creating a frozen in time effect:
  
  
  A spotlight shines obliquely on a curtain of mist, creating a rainbow effect:
  
  
  For anyone in NYC, you MUST go and check him out.  Ivy, hopefully the exhibition will still be there when you get there.
  
  Okay, back to the rabbit hole now...
  

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