It’s a process

The door opened suddenly and my boss, who was the director/writer/producer of the feature film that I was editing, lead another group of strangers into my editing room. This was becoming a routine part of my day—entertaining another group of wide-eyed visitors eager for a behind-the-scenes look at the film. He told me to play the scene where the heroes were being chased through the streets of an Indonesian port city and escaped on their surf boards. It was one of his favorites. Everyone smiled and laughed at the right moments and complimented how fun it was. Next, he had me show the boxing scene, in which one of our heroes used a trick of putting hot sauce on his boxing glove to defeat his far superior opponent. More laughter. A few more favorite scenes and everyone left, sure that this movie was going to be a huge success.

But reality hit us hard—despite all the enthusiasm in the room, the film was a disaster waiting to happen.

Most of the time, you’re not sure why the movie or television show you put your heart and soul into isn’t successful. Sometimes you blame the marketing, or the cast didn’t have enough star power, or the timing just wasn’t right. In hindsight, the cracks in the process were clear from the start, but ego often blinds you to the flaws that matter most.

This film had several major assets. We had an experienced director, shooting real athletes in awe-inspiring locations. The action was spectacular, the imagery breathtaking. The shoot took place over three months and the footage was truly gorgeous.

Then tragedy struck: the cut scenes looked amazing.  We watched them over and over again…in no particular order. Over the many weeks that we continued to fine tune the scenes, only once had we screened the entire film without stopping. I mentioned to the director/writer/producer that we needed to watch it all the way through again to make sure it was playing, but he said he didn’t need to. He knew it was working.

We did a full mix, prepared a film print and went to a theater in a beach town south of L.A. for a test screening. We were excited and ready to wow an audience and impress the studio, which was seeing the film for the first time. As you can guess, it didn’t go well. The beautiful images didn’t matter, because the story didn’t play. The hilarious scenes didn’t get any laughs. The dramatic climax had no impact because no one cared about the characters.

The audience and the studio hated the film, so naturally everyone panicked. We cut out fifteen minutes, radically restructured, locked the film without another test screening and released it to poor reviews and disappointing box office.

I know that this is the wrong way to make a film because on another occasion, with almost all the same people involved, we made one the right way. It was a cable movie with about a quarter of the budget of the other film.

The thing we did right is that we screened. Every Friday evening. Screen the film, go out for beer and pizza and talk about what was working and more importantly what wasn’t working. Work on it all week and do it again. For twelve weeks. Restructure, work on the timing, throw out our favorite moments and find the story. When we locked the picture we knew we had the story that we wanted to tell. We didn’t win any awards, but we had the satisfaction of doing the best possible job that we could.

To create anything great, you have to face your weaknesses, your shortcomings and your failures. Looking back, it’s clear that the real victory isn’t in the perfect shot—it’s in embracing the process, the struggle, and the learning that comes with every project, win or lose.