Video and Paint

As I sat and watched the video for a project I am editing convert ever so slowly on my computer, I found myself thinking a lot about "watching paint dry," and how similar that was to watching the "percentage of job done" move on the screen. And thinking about how both video and paint create colorful images--but only if you're willing to do the work to make the images.
 
Working on freelance projects has given me a speedy education in all of (well, at least some of) the things we "video editor artists" take for granted when we work at networks or companies. At a network, you don't set up and do tech maintenance on your own edit station. There are people for that. You don't ingest your own footage from the cameras. There are people for that. You often don't even output your own finished products. There are people for that too. When you're working on your own, it's a little like being a painter with no staff. You buy your own paint. You pick the colors and carry the heavy cans. You make sure you have the correct supplies, and you suffer if you don't. You "watch the paint (or primer, or whatever) dry," because that's part of the job. In the end, an awful lot besides painting becomes your job, leaving you remarkably little time for the part of the whole process that you really like to do.
 
I am slowly learning to see the "paint-carrying" and "watching paint dry" as steps in my being able to edit on my own. It doesn't mean I don't long for assistants, as my eyes glaze over that "percentage of job done" box during ingesting or rendering or exporting. It just means I've realized that sometimes, you have to carry your own paint in order to get the colors that you want.