The ghost of an edit

There always seems to be a point in an edit – not necessarily a moment, more like a slowly developing period of clarity – where the film you’re going to end up with appears to you, like a kind of ghost, and you get the chance to compare it, for the first time, with the film as it had originally lived in your head. This is usually the point where (if you’re me) a feeling of vague disappointment settles in. Not that what you’ve got is necessarily bad or wrong – is just the feeling that what was in your head has failed to make the transition onto screen. Sometimes this can even be a good thing – some idea you had and had to scrap because of time or feasibility or act of God – has actually transmogrified into something that works better. Other times, you can feel, nagging in the back of your mind that you’ve missed your chance.

This is more less the point I’ve reached with “Awake”. It’s kind of almost there, but some of the things that I’d hoped we’d got, don’t quite seem to be working and I’m having to invent ways of working round them. Sometimes this involves shooting something new, an insert that will help to tell the story better. Other times, I can just feel that there’s something missing. Maybe it’s music – I’ve got an idea of the kind of sounds that I want to use, I just need to have the time to record them (and rely on my friends for supplying them…). Anyway, I’m going to take some time off from the edit because I’ve got a load of other stuff on so maybe I’ll be able to come to it in a couple of weeks with some fresh eyes. In the meantime, here are some more stills.