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Edit Center Epilogue
Today I went by the Edit Center to watch Family Tree, as edited by: us. I take back my hubris about color correcting. I feel like one of my scenes is too dark, but otherwise I enjoy seeing the whole film and wish I had been in class for the discussion afterwards.
I once had a job I didn’t like (well, more than once). One day I said I was going out to get a cup of coffee and on my way to the deli I passed a movie theater. A film I wanted to see was just about to start, so I slipped into the theater. When the film was over, I couldn’t possibly go back to work with no coffee, no explanation, and three hours of the day missing. So, I didn’t. I never went back. Which is to say a number of things: If I think something is a waste of my time, you can’t pay me to do it, and I certainly won’t pay you to allow me to do it. The Edit Center has a very generous policy of refunding part of your fee should you decide to leave the class early. If I had felt like it wasn’t one hundred percent worth my time to be there, I would have walked out. Alan Oxman, Betsy Kagen, and Chris Branca taught a class that covered the technical and the creative as well as the practical aspects of both editing and of being an editor, but they did something else that impressed me. They paid attention to all the students as individuals. Not all of us came to the class with the same expectations, desires, needs, or personalities. I watched Oxman, Kagen and Branca tailor both how they taught different students and what they taught different students. Yes, we all learned the same basics, but my brain doesn’t work or learn in the exact same way as the brain next to me or the one next to the one next to me. And so on. Teachers who pay attention to how you listen and see and absorb information are the difference between an adequate course where information is presented and a course where no one walks out the door without the skills and knowledge promised. And no one walks out the door early. If anything I keep looking for excuses to go back.
