Our Editor-in-Chief shares a personal essay about one of her Hollywood filmmaking adventures about the price to pay when egos collide instead of collaborate, with some valuable insights for creatives in any industry.
Egos in the Editing Room
HANNA NIELSON
I brought a thick woolen jumper and hot coffee to work, never mind it was a blistering summer's day in Southern California, the blue sky radiant enough to burn out retinas. Inside the film production studio where I would spend the next eight hours, excessive air-conditioning frostily preserved the computer equipment. It was like working in perpetual January. For my current project, I had scripted and edited a two-minute promotional video for a travel series. In order to get funding for a pilot episode, a promotional video was needed to attract investors. Once the pilot episode was bank rolled, it could be filmed and then shopped to studios who would then fund the series. At least that was how things worked ten years ago. That day I anticipated getting the final okay from the director. The project wrapped, he could fly to New York, meet with investors, and then voila – the standard “rich and famous” contract would be signed and sealed.
I didn't think it would happen that way – but because it's Hollywood, you just never know. So, I had taken on the project in spite of a few minor red flags I noticed in the preliminary lunch meeting, or “script meeting,” where the director and his cinematographer best friend had spit-balled ideas and expected me to spin their mismatched, half-baked 'vibes' and philosophies into gold.
I set up the editing bay, cued up the footage. Fashionably late, the director, Mr. Otter, entered along with the cinematographer, Mr. Badger (not actual names). They were buzzing with excitement, convinced they were on the verge of being multi-millionaires. In the previous session, when I'd screened the video for them, they had both outdone each other with praising the story structure I had crafted from their loose collection of ideas, and the distinctive style I had built from their impulsively shot footage, and even the poignant soundbites I had extracted from their scatterbrained interviews with experts. Their notes had been minimal, and I'd been assured this final review was just a formality. A stamp of approval. Then I could export the video to a hard drive, receive my cheque, and – barring some strange fiat of the Universe propelling us all to fame and glory for a two-minute video – this would probably be the last I would ever hear of this project. And I was fine with that.
With everyone settled, and the soundproof door closed, I pressed playback.
Thirty seconds in, Mr. Badger cried, 'Hold it!' A time-lapse of a sun-drenched field with fluffy white clouds skirting the sky faded into a close up of a shadowy leaf swaying in the breeze. The shadowy leaf (Badger's footage) wasn't featured as long as the sunny field. 'It's not fair,' he complained. 'They should both be equal.'
They were both best friends, I had been told many times since the project began, and even though Mr Otter was further along in the industry and had a better eye as a cameraman (he had worked with Hugh Jackman and described him as 'a dream to work with'), he and Mr Badger had a pact that if one of them made it big, the other would be assured of a place beside them. Together, they would revel in all the fame and glory. It was some sort of 'man-pact' that I didn't fully understand. A bit like riding one's coat tails, or pulling one's self up by the bootstraps. Basically whoever managed the bootstraps trick would pull the other up by the coattails, or something. It wasn't the first time I'd heard something like this described to me in Hollywood, but it was always described by men. A kind of gentleman's agreement. My habit is to just smile and nod when I hear it – because it doesn't pertain to me. The system of patriarchal favours isn't open to my gender. As women we're the prizes, the commodities exchanged, the ultimate rewards of the system – not the equal players in it, not really.
Because of their bootstrapping-coattails agreement, Mr Otter kindly insisted that the time-lapses should be equal. It was only fair.
This was a new note, not something that had been a problem when they had first screened the video and assured me it was wonderful. It also presented a real technical problem. Diplomatically as I could, I explained that the unequal lengths in the time-lapses were due to the original footage. For a time-lapse to last more than a few seconds, as in Mr Badger's case, there must be several hundred or thousands of still photographs, which Mr Otter knew and so he had captured more than enough footage.
As I explained this, Mr. Badger became gloomy. He hadn't thought of that while filming. It was too late to do any re-shoots. The budget was spent and the meeting with investors had been scheduled.
'You're the editor,' Mr. Badger complained. 'Fix it.'
He seemed to expect me to manufacture extra footage for him. Footage he hadn't bothered to shoot. Although this was a decade away from AI-generated footage, I imagine someone like Mr Badger is exactly the target demographic. Someone convinced of his own brilliance, but unable to dedicate the time and effort to actually hone it. He'd rather just press a button and make it so.
Ignoring his surly attitude, I got to work. Meanwhile, Mr. Otter prattled on about how he spent eight hours filming his time-lapses. Packed his own lunch even. Mr. Badger's admitted hadn't packed a lunch, he'd just spotted the shadowy leaf framed against the sky and filmed it for 'what seemed like ages' but was in fact only sixty seconds.
I adjusted the leaf footage to slow motion, barely a crawl. It was still too short. I would have to shorten the other footage to keep them equal length. Mr. Otter fussed. He didn't want to shorten it his expertly filmed footage. The best bit was the ending where the fluffiest clouds came into view.
I offered to shorten the beginning of the clip, preserving the fluffy cloud ending.
Mr. Otter folded his little hands over his belly. That was acceptable.
Playback resumed after I made the changes. Mr. Badger snidely remarked that Mr. Otter's shots did not look artistic enough. They looked too corporate, too perfect. To my amazement, Mr. Otter agreed. It seemed Badger's visual style was to be the unique selling point for the show. In my professional opinion that was a mistake – investors would want to see professionally shot footage, so that was why I used Mr Otter's footage as a baseline, and only inserted Mr Badger's footage as like a flavouring of 'artsyness.'
Without warning, I was expected to reverse this – to sacrifice Otter's majestically composed, well-lit shots, and rely heavily on Badger's footage: shaky, underexposed, and always too short. He had a good eye for composition but always lost interest mid-shot, filming only eight seconds of brilliance at a time. I tried to preserve what I could of Mr. Otter's footage, needing clear visuals to anchor the storyline. My allegiance was to the meta-structure, the story – that's what would actually sell this project. Investors are like any other audience, they want to feel moved by something. Immersed. Guided from point to point with seamless clarity.
The men wouldn't listen. Both of them seized on every millisecond of footage. It all had to be changed – every bit of it. To my every protest that they were ripping apart the story structure, they cried that they were friends! They had an agreement!
The story didn't matter. The battle of egos had begun.
I took a long sip of my latte, knowing these men were anything but friends. I'd seen the fault lines in the initial script meeting. They had different worldviews, different agendas, different backgrounds. But somehow neither of them saw it. Mr Badger was an art school outsider, convinced he was too visionary to work for the Man, who had somehow wrangled his way into being a D-cameraman on big budget franchise films. Mr Otter had a house in Hollywood Hills slathered in expensive original paintings and imported Buddha statues. He had a famous family name. cash, and big names in his contacts list; if anything, he was the Man.
Sealed in a sound proof room, knowing this project was sinking faster than the Titanic, I was forced to alter everything that had been approved in the last edit session as 'perfect!' and 'we love it!' and 'don't change it!
'
At last, we reached the finale of the video: an informative soundbite from an ecologist. She took a stance on the environment, subtly critiquing the travel industry. I'd kept it minimal, knowing that investors wouldn't take kindly to the more over criticism that was in the long version of the interview.
'Maybe we should lose it,' Mr. Otter fretted. 'It might offend the investors.'
'Cut it?!' Mr. Badger exploded. 'That's the only reason I got involved in this project! Save the environment, man! Tourists are destroying the planet!'
'This is a show for tourists!' wailed Mr. Otter, throwing his hands in the air.
Bellowing at each other, eyes flashing, teeth bared, they sprang to their feet. Rolling office chairs careened across the room. I snatched my latte from the desk, bolted out the door. I yanked it shut behind me, to prevent their roars from echoing down the corridor.
Unlike Ernest Hemingway, I'm not ashamed to say I ran like hell. I found a deserted sound stage and sat down on the bottom rung of a ladder. Alone in the glare of a forgotten spotlight, I took a breath. My latte was cold.
A lighting man came in, setting up for a shoot the next day. I'd worked with him before, and he asked me what happened. So, I let it all spill out.
How had these men come this far without realizing they weren't even on the same page? They had spent days shooting footage together. They had written the script together. Perhaps the excitement of "doing a project together" had blinded them to reality. Perhaps their personal friendship blinded them to their deeply entrenched rivalry.
Besides all that, the harshest fact about an editing room, is that sooner or later you have to face facts. The footage is either there or it isn't. The 'totally awesome' thing you filmed is either brilliant or not. Garbage in equals garbage out. The rose tinted glasses have to come off. Reality quite literally bites. And no amount of chair-throwing can change it.
Sagely, the lighting man listened. He'd seen it all before, having worked on similar projects.
'Do you think maybe you had rose-tinted glasses on, too?' he asked, quietly adjusting a light.
In the shivering cold studio I thought about it. Well, I had to admit, I'd gotten involved in the project for the money. It was meant to be an easy few thousand dollars. Enough to cover my rent while I searched for other film gigs, because to be in Los Angeles means forever looking for work – because you're forever on the edge of catastrophe, paying too much rent just to live there and worry about how to pay rent. But if I examined my motives more closely, I'd have to admit I had been holding onto the hope – faint and flickering – that maybe, against all odds, this project would actually go somewhere. Maybe there would be a pilot episode. Maybe there would be a series. Maybe I'd never have to worry about rent again.
Mr Otter had said he wanted me as lead editor if the series got picked up. And Mr Badger, for all his attitude, had recommended me for the project in the first place – based on my other work he'd seen. It would mean travel to luxury resorts around the world, editing footage on the fly, putting together storylines, cutting together interviews – long days, but all expenses paid.
Across the studio, the soundproof editing room door opened. We didn't hear it but we could hear the echoed shouts of Otter and Badger – taking their argument to the coffee station. Accusations and protests flying, along with disposable coffee cups and sugar packets most likely.
The lighting guy indicated the open door with his head, pulling on a pair of work gloves.
'You wanna be trapped in some luxury hotel room with that?' he asked me. 'Or out in the field with them, in some rain forest, and they're doing that?'
I pictured myself wading through a Costa Rican rain forest to an eco tourist lodge, stung by a thousand mosquitos, watching those two wrangle over who would get to film a cinematic sunset, a picturesque village, a lesser spotted tree shrew. Shrieking like howler monkeys about who was the better cameraman. Sleepless nights of editing while those two snarled like dogs over every fade-in, tearing each episode to shreds, damn the storyline – think of the time lapses! It would be like The Odd Couple meets Apocalypse Now. Except I would be the dumb animal hacked to pieces. My sanity, creativity, and my spirit destroyed – all for the money.
'Is that worth it?' the lighting man asked, lobbing another sandbag onto a t-stand, to make sure a spotlight didn't fall over.
Then the director and cinematographer wandered in, quiet as mystified babes who somehow drove away the babysitter. They wondered why I had left the editing room. They laughed and pretended they were on the same page, and had always been on the same page. They were old friends, haha, that's just how they talked to one another. Passionately. Creatively.
They were creative people, they explained, as though I somehow was not also a creative person. And begged to be given license to act (and shout) for creative purposes. I had directed many projects of my own by that point, and never once shouted at anyone. But I didn't tell them that. I told them this was the final day I'd been contracted for – and if they wanted to extend the editing, it would require a new contract, and another pay cheque. They assured me they were happy with things, everything was equal now.
In the end, I exported their Frankensteined version of my carefully crafted video. A version of it that would have alienated the very investors they hoped to attract. But they never made the meeting with investors. Things fell apart somewhere between the editing room and New York – they couldn't agree on the final cut. They wanted more edits. I told them I was booked on another project, and couldn't help them.
When egos collide instead of collaborate, no amount of editing will ever 'just fix it.' And no amount of money can pave over toxic rivalries, or compensate those who get caught in the crossfire. I'm grateful to the lighting guy for helping me see that my peace of mind is valuable and worth protecting; it isn't all about chasing the dream. Sometimes the best pay day you can give yourself is to just to walk away.
By the way, no investor ever bought the show. They never even saw the video. The last I heard, Mr Badger and Mr Otter hired another editor. Years later, they are still editing...the best of friends.
*This is a revised version of the original, “Egos in the Editing Room”, first published on the Ms in the Biz blog, May, 2016. Link http://msinthebiz.com/2016/05/16/egos-editing-room/
AUTHOR BIO
Hanna Nielson is a writer-editor-filmmaker in Belfast. She has published articles, prose, poetry, and more in publications including, The Ogham Stone, The Honest Ulsterman, and Roi Faineant. She is also querying two novels for publication. Currently she is Editor in Chief of The Belfast Review, Editor for New Isles Press Issue 4, and Editor at Yellow House Publishing.
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