The Year of Archetype: Day 62

Wondering if I'm teetering precariously on that slippery slope.

Tomorrow I'm shooting a scene we didn't get to on Sunday, which is the first day in my filmmaking history that I didn't finish an hour early; we finished two hours late, mostly on account that we were filming outdoors near the airport and soon learned that, gee, a lot of planes take off a 7 p.m. We were also taking shifts standing inside the house since, even at a relatively-balmy 20 degrees Fahrenheit, being outdoors for about two hours causes numbness in pretty much every limb.

But this isn't about the past. Nor is it about Saturday, when I'm shooting the final scene for Part 1 of Archetype and which, examining my rough cut of everything thus far (spurred at the behest of my sound designer, despite not wanting to cut until all was shot), seems superfluous.

Here's where the problem comes in: I'm cutting and, since I'm still shooting, I'm thinking about shots I don't have but want. And, in theory, it won't take much to get the shots. I actually have a few planned for Sunday. Just have to shave.

To most, this doesn't seem a problem at all. It seems a blessing. That I have the resources to get additional shots I want 1) while it's still winter and 2) for free.

This, however, goes against the grain of everything I was taught as an editor. That, when you get the footage, you have to make it work. I just did first passes on most of the scenes, and instead of trying harder, of scouring for some extra frames from some shot, I'm saying Fuck It and shooting some new shots. It also seems a sort of defeat in some sideways way; that I failed to foresee that I'd need a certain shot.

I guess it's just bothering me because, for the hell of it, I was digging through my old Transmissions project files, and the rough cut for Part 1 is absolutely horrendous, and I made it work in the final edit. Sure, I grabbed shots from the very end of the film and cheated them at the front, but that's fair game. I didn't reshoot anything. Mostly because of the labor involved in clearing that damn closet.

There's a lot of speculation in this post. It's undermining what I imagine is my projection of my progress in making Archetype when, really, it's going far better than I imagined in pretty much every way, as a director, actor, cinematographer, everything, really.

But as for this pointless non-issue (I'm going to shoot the shots I want, dammit), it digs into the ultimate Filmmaker's Dilemma: rush something now and be done with it, but then live the rest of your life with something halfway shoddy that could've been fixed if an extra fifteen minutes were spent dealing with it. Sometimes it's as simple as running another take. Taking an extra thirty seconds to frame up a shot better. Maybe even opening up the script and reading that dusty old thing and try to remember what part of the story you're trying to tell and how best to tell it.