Almost All the Time

Film is like a living body that has physical movement, emotional movement and changes in circumstances or events all occurring, balancing, being assimilated, and working in cause and effect relationships with each other almost all of the time.

And when it isn’t ‘almost all of the time’ it is indeed, ‘all of the time.’  No almost about it. The above quote, lifted with utmost respect from Australian film master editor Karen Pearlman’s seminal work, Cutting Rhythms, Shaping the Film Edit, is to my understanding of video editing what On the Road is to my understanding of freedom and purpose. It may be a stretch to segue from one art form to another with such bravado, but I am sure Kerouac, and even more so, Cassady, would approve. 

A living body that has physical movement. Movement that we take for granted the same way that we assume that the sacred parts comprising it are bullet-proof and carry a lifetime guarantee. The motion we initiate, the grace with which we navigate through the mine fields of our daily existences, and the longevity of the time we eventfully create, suggest that a regular, focused schedule of preventative maintenance is warranted. The amazing fact is that when we work it, this living body with physical movement, the greater the intensity and the stricter the structure of the practice of perpetual motion (minus rest) the stronger it becomes. It literally adapts to the newly, or continuing, demands of constant improvement. Professional athletes, dancers and soldiers will tell you this. There exists in the reality of our purpose the unwritten code that one must care for one’s bones for the same reasons that mystics care for their souls, scholars care for their studies, editors for their transitions and writers for their shared experiences with life. 

Adding the emotional experiences to the physical mix is where we are allowed to add color. As much as black and white creates stunning contrasts the minute we add an emotion to the noir, its vibrancy and saturation, the intensity of it, changes everything like a desert sunrise. The amalgam of motion and love, movement and joy, adventure and awe, transform the mundane to the magic. With abracadabra speed. 

Just when you thought that might be enough (and it often is) when we toss changes of circumstances into the green salad, a delicious mix of opportunity explodes on the plate like a starter-course firecracker. We literally grab a cross-section of detail from the running time-line and examine it with microscopic attention to detail. Tell me about the crisis. Show me the back-story. Sing me a song about hope. Follow the yellow brick road. In this dream-state where everything is in constant flux, one’s ability to stop the rotation, or slow it down to manageable speed, provides the opportunity for inspection, understanding and commentary. We actually get to make policy decisions, orchestrate world-changing events and, by changing a part of the whole, change the whole. We can add love and decry hatred, fear and violence. We can, in real time, be the creators of our destiny. As the events around us are balanced, assimilated and working in case and effect relationships. 

Relationships with each other. With everything. The dance of life. Our timeless two-step through the arc of our story, where tumbleweeds sail and we ponder the esoteric metaphysics of another day, another opportunity to make sense of the theory of chaos. 

It is very much like editing. We have the incredible assignment to mix and match, mash-up a story, put all the associated parts and pieces together in the creation of the illusion of life imitating truth with fine artistic self-awareness. Just as intrepidly running from coast-to-coast without care or concern for social convention. We take chances and improvise with risk because we trust it is for our growth. We engineer personal tests to prove our worthiness. We take notes and learn from our missteps and spiritual detours, constantly adding to the acumen of the growing, living, moving, feeling, thinking and participating protagonist in our story. 

Almost all the time.