At what point, exactly

...does editing a play via translating it into movie format drop over the line of obsessive and become its own creature entirely?

Last night I finished the editing of Man without a Face - the bit that I filmed from the play, anyway. I need to turn up the volume of DJ's voice at the beginning of his singing, but other than that, the visuals of him are done. (Side note: so, OK, it takes, what? About three and a half days to do four and a half minutes and two days to do two mintues, so we're averaging, what? A minute a day? [Provided, that is, I have the time to work on it! %P]) {Side note #2: my back is feeling a bit better, I actually went for a quarter mile walk which I haven't done in forever. Of course, now I've got the heating pad up to full...! =}

Right, anyway, so the saga of last night. I was well enough to go to Mass (alleluia!!!), and then Mom invited Terry and Jay over for lunch. So we hung out with them for a few hours, which was nice (despite Jay giving me all this unsolicited advice about computers - no, really, it was GOOD advice, and I'll probably take it, I just didn't want to be lectured about why I ought to trade in my Compaq now that I've finally got it back and working!). John came over and I showed to all four of them (including Mom) the rough cut for MwoaF. It was a little frustrating though because a) Jay kept talking over it and b) Mom kept trying to get me to explain how I had edited it and c) they couldn't understand at first why they were just listening to a sound file and then they were criticizing the video file which wasn't the actual video I was going to be using so it was a moot point! *nnngh nnngh nnngh* Ah well.

They left for a bit in order to make apples goodies (pies, cakes, muffins, etc.), so I got a chance to work on MwoaF again and...it S-T-U-N-K. I couldn't get ANY of the visuals to match up with the dubbing! Around the time that I was banging my head against the keyboard (while, mind you, the self-loathing lyrics were on repeat in my brain), Mom called down asking if I wanted to order a pizza with her. Seizing the opportunity, I ran upstairs, talked her out of going off our diets, and took a few seconds to encourage her (she was doing bills and things are *very* tight around here). I had literally just reminded her that God provides, remember St. Anthony and the bread!, when the doorbell rings and who's there but Terry and Jay with a YUMMY apple cake! (I ate about half the cake between last night and this morning, I'm sure. So much for the diet.... ;)

We all had a good laugh about that, I hung around upstairs some more, Jay made a pitch about how Dells are so much better then wrote down info for me about getting an external hard drive with 60 gig on it (I'm REALLY interested in that - I think it's the only way I'll be able to make these movies), as well as a better editing software system (may wait on that, although it's tempting!). I was getting sleepy and frustrated by lack of editing even bad editing, when Jules finally came home from King Richard's Faire with Tarra in tow. Jules took my place entertaining and I went off yawningly downstairs. I was just emotionally and physically pooped. But I thought I'd play the piano first.

Bad idea. Well, not bad per se, but piano playing always rawly expresses my emotions, whatever they may be, and I was not in a cheerful mood. Melancholy, yes. Sorrowful, self-pitying, morose - check. So I played ALL the variations on "How can I turn to her" from - what else? - Bearskin, ending with the "Summer is coming bit" and thence into the new version of "My Darling," that is the same quartet melody but over a syncopated tango bass line. Works SO much better. I'm kicking myself for having not figured out it was a tango before production. Gah. Ah well.

And this brings me to the question today. Just before I retired for the evening (meaning, I played the piano, rewatched what I had edited, and then spent the next three hours editing to my satisfaction so that I can say I have the completed DJ version now!), I grabbed Jay, gave him my black suit jacket, had him roll up his purple sweatshirt sleeve, and filled his pockets with my foreign coin collection. I then proceeded to film his hand a) dropping coins in various forms of slow motion, b) from beneath, c) the side, d) above, e) and also him running his hand through said coins. I plan, of course, to put this over the beginning of MwoaF, the intro bit.

So, my question is: am I editing a play? Or am I putting together a movie? And how far is too far for editing a play? I guess, really, it's not question of am I capable of editing together a play without all this need for pick-up scenes, etc. - because I fully intend on just "straight" editing Brigadoon, but rather that I really AM - to the best of my abilities - recreating Bearskin into a completely new medium. Is that an OK thing to do? Am I being overly obsessive? Both Mom and Jay were enthusiastic and even encouraging about my obsessive tendency over this silly thing - and without me even posing the question to them. Which seems to me to say a) YES, I am obsessive but, perhaps they are right that b) Mom: "It's a good obsessive. We need obsessive people to get things done. If you weren't obsessive, you would never get this story told." or c) Jay: "It's because you're obsessive about what you do that you do it well." Which is to say:

Bearskin is not just a play.

I think I must be creating...a template? I mean, yes, it's an edited version for my dearest cast and crew, certainly! But I think I'm also approaching it as: I am editing together a movie, a preview, a rough version to shop around and pitch to...Broadway? Hollywood? Oh, Lord, what am I doing? Some days I get all stupidly premonition-like that "I'm gonna be big!" and as soon as I think those type thoughts I try to bat them down saying, "Don't be ridiculous. Don't set yourself up. Don't get a fathead, you moron. It's not you, it's only what you're meant to do in His time. Don't-get-cocky!" And then another thought jumps up, "Yes, it is all gifts you've been given by God. So it would be equally ridiculous to deny that you have these gifts." And then a final thought says, "Oh, forget it. Don't worry about it one way or another. You'll only make yourself frantic." And then I turn to Jules, with tortured rings around my eyes and she takes one look at me, sighs, and says, "Yes, you're wonderful. Yes, everyone loves you. No, you're not too fat. Yes, you're talented. Yes, [whatever project I'm working on at the moment] is fine. Yes, [whatever project I've just completed] is fine. Have I covered everything?" To which I open up my mouth again, and she cuts me off once more with, "Can I get a Caesar salad? Or will that break the bank?"

I love Jules.

Anywho, I was thinking of the question again because I just downloaded all these sound clips onto my computer for potentially making demon-like, fire-like, spooky-damnation-sounding clips and overlaying them onto MwoaF (provided it doesn't override DJ scream-singing, "THEN if I'm damned as is every weak man") while flame roar up under his feet. I just have to make sure I don't overdo it and get too much into spectacle.

Gah. That's something else that freaks me out and bothers me to no end. Those who watch my plays or review Niamh (and I'm sure it'll happen for my other novels as well - which I have to pick up again - urp!), always tend to comment on the spectacle and/or the style of the piece, more than on the plot, characters, etc. This bothers me because I've always held in lowest esteem those works which focus more on spectacle and leave plot and character completely out to dry. I try to uphold the Aristotelian view of poetics, that plot and character come first and spectacle last. And I thought I'd created pretty good plots and characters that I like to visit and aren't one dimensional...and yet everyone comments on the spectacle.

I've talked it over with Jules and Mom and I think it must be this: as Mom said the other day, I don't view the world and tell stories in the usual way. So, I suppose perhaps people are looking at me as they first looked at Tolkien - who IS this guy, worldbuilding, urg? - or at e. e. cummings - what's with all the formatting? - or at the founders of opera, or even at Andrew Lloyd Webber who revived modern opera. It's not so much that the story or characters (I hope!) are bad - no, they're quite passable - but that it takes time for the audience to deal with the FORM. I don't want to sound pioneer-y or anything, I don't think I can be - surely elsewhere people are doing similar things - maybe in Russia or some place where there's a greater openness to playing with form, where there's less stricture on the "Western" breathless action. Nor am I pioneering "antique" language, since it's antique it's hearkening back, continuing on. If anything, our society needs to get its vocabulary back in line! Dickens and Austen would have thought Niamh very crude in its vocabulary - surely she must know MORE words than that! Gah.

Anyway, which is a roundabout way of saying, "Don't despair, Emily! Just keep trucking along!" As Mom would say, "Just put one foot in front of the other." Or as Gandalf would say, "All you have to do is decide what to do with the time you are given." Simply put, it's the parable of the talents. I'd rather not be the third servant, please. I'll do what I can with the strange coins given me. Maybe I'll go see Lost in Translation tonight - by all accounts there's a non-Hollywood form movie that's doing quite well! It will be heartening to see...I hope. (Indy films sometimes get all weird in the form and forget plot or character. Chesterton's balance all over again.)

Mood: At sixes and sevens
Music: None at present, most likely sound effects and MwoaF in a minute.
Quote: "Where there's life, there's hope." ~ Sam Gamgee