Finally, Some Editing

Johan and I spent the day at The White House in London. It’s an editing powerhouse. I tried to keep my inner American subdued and not make endless Obama references. ‘Will Barack be viewing this cut?’ The house was white, so I guess they have every right to call it that. The fact that they call it ‘The’ White House seems a bit offensive to me. But nonetheless the experience was very pleasant.

The house itself seemed like something straight out of a Dickens’ novel to my cliche American sensibilities. The floors undulated and dipped to the extent that it seemed like I was walking through a Tony Hawk level. Every door hinge spoke with its own weathered British accent. There were wide and uneven gaps between the bottoms of doors and the floorboards beneath.

It was virtually impossible to find a bathroom. Even when I found one, it was hard to find my way back. The rooms seemed to shift and reorganize themselves as the day went on. There was a tiny triangular anti-chamber outside of the bathrooms, not even big enough to open the door fully into. Felt like architecture of Alice and Wonderland and the Matrix trilogy decided to have an offspring.

The editing chamber we worked in was quite spacious with nap inducing red sofas. I don’t think that was an accident. I think everything about this editing set up is engineered to get creatives to dose off, thereby taking the heat off the editors so they can do their own thing unhassled. They even served us a lunch that could not have been more geared towards massive food coma. Beef pie, with a ‘side’ of mashed potatoes. Dense, dense foods. But my eyelids didn’t flicker or sag.

We stayed engaged the whole day. And I really like where we ended up. More experiments and tweaks to make today.

It is fun to finally be at an assembly stage in this project. It has felt so theoretical for the past four months. The end result has shifted and been reformed countless times in my head. We are working on the virals for the campaign right now. It is good to have a bit of a rolling start heading into the edit of the main spot. A main spot that has spanned a month of being here in London. A main spot that has spanned 10 shooting days.

Everyone is always so quick to remind me that ‘it never happens like this. Don’t get used to this.’ I’m just taking it one day at a time. Doing what I can to give the best contribution I can at every step of the process. Fight for the team. Fight for the work. Rah to the Rah.

Hmmm, feels like this is getting a little too ‘teenage girl blogging in her bedroom’ in the earnesty department.

Guess I will head back to the ‘Other’ White House and make a bunch of cheesy Obama and America-centric puns.

‘Do you guys have a First Editor? Is there an Oval Editing Suite? How much does it cost to stay one night in the Orwell Bedroom?’