Converting potential into actuality

I’ll write a bit more about this soon, but this is a quike note to say that part of my job is to bring a cold, hard dose of reality into the creative process.

As soon as I splice one shot after another, that’s when all the potential ways of building a scene start turning into what we’ll actually be able to produce. It’s tempting to put this point off for as long as possible, but someone has got to start making the film at some point. It might as well be me.

This is in the vein of the joke from ‘Shakespeare in Love’ when the actor playing the Nurse says that the play he’s in is “About this nurse…” We editors like to say that the film making starts when one shot is combined with another. The stuff before that is just preparation.

Knowing that directors and producers want to know if ‘it’ll cut toegther’ as soon as I know means that I have to be careful… but sure.