As an editor, I tend to spend a lot of time in a room by myself (except, of course, at the start of the pandemic, when I edited at home in a room with sometimes awake, sometimes sleeping children). It can be a peaceful little life. I interact with the machine, and the material. And for a short time, the producer who hands me the script and video, and the producer who approves the piece. It requires neither a lot of makeup nor a lot of baggage (literal or psychological). And that’s okay with me.
These last few months, however, I have been less of an editor and more of a director. I am no longer alone in a room. And while I am still interacting with a script and video, and with producers, I now also communicate with talent and other technicians and with anyone else who happens to be in the room or on headset.
I was nervous about the change. About learning the equipment and the routine. And about having that much connection. Yet, while my nerves continue to be at a slightly elevated level, the connection has turned out to be a good thing. I talk through, and I talk to, and I learn. I engage with people more, rather than just executing their vision. I connect.
And re: connection, I realize each day that this is an opportunity that came about because I allowed myself to connect. Allowed myself to believe the people who believed I could do it. Allowed myself to have some pieces of my past connect me to taking steps in my present.
So, re: connection may often be about who you know. But it is also about who and what you allow yourself to know. It’s taking that step from what’s comfortable because you do it by yourself, largely on your own terms, to what’s less comfortable because you are reaching and stretching and learning the rules of others.
Today I know more about more tasks and more people than I did before. Because I allowed myself a little more connection.
Re: connection—I re:commend it.
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