It’s a big week for me this week.
Ha! I say that like I’m the only one. Whatevs.
It’s a big week. The documentary I did the first cut for waaaaaaaay back in God only knows when, “The Newport Effect,” is finally premiering to a small theatre audience in Charlotte on Thursday, then going to air on the local PBS a couple of times in the next couple of weeks (gee, THANKS, producers, for telling me THAT! I had to read it online today! Gah!) before hopefully getting picked up in a few more markets.
I’m battling some demons around this doc. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the finished product, which I haven’t seen yet, but I saw a version late last year that was mindbogglingly good. I’ve seen just about every moment of footage they had to work with, listened to 90%+ of the interviews top to bottom, cataloged and digitized a decade’s worth of stuff, photos, everything. If what they had to work with is any indication (and it absolutely is), this is gonna be tremendous.
So, no. Nothing about the doc itself. My demons here are because I flaked. The producers, who are also dear friends of mine, might argue that point (and I would argue right back), but the editing started at a really odd place in my life and it seemed every time we sat down to work on it, a migraine flew out of nowhere or Earl was sick or something else came up. I was restless in my career choice, they were in a lot of ways distracted with other things, and while I have remained a huge supporter of the project, my actual, physical workings with the piece sadly ended before it really got started. Over the past few years, as it’s progressed into its later stages (this thing has been a true labor of love in SO many ways), I haven’t snagged all the opportunities I’ve had to ride along with it, to check in and see what’s going on, and it’s made me very sad. I feel like I’ve let people down, like I’ve let my friends down, and, mostly, like I’ve let myself down. And when I feel down, it’s harder for me to try to nose my way back in, so in a way I’ve just abandoned it, and them, because it just wasn’t comfortable for me to own up to the fact that I flaked like a cornflake.
See, these are the same producers who did “The Spirit of Sacajawea” a few years back. They took a tremendous leap of faith bringing me, a total unknown, on as their offline editor. It was an unbelievably crazy move: “Hey! Let’s hire this chick we don’t know from Adam except for ONE friend who has worked with her a handful of times on a show as far removed from a documentary as you can get, and OH WAIT! We want to cut it on an editing system she’s never used before, but she says she’s willing to learn as she goes. She’s got the equipment and the software and, well, we’ll just pretend the 5 month old isn’t there. She can’t even sit up by herself yet anyway, so we’re good.”
Two months later…
(TechPapa wishes to point out that, even though I am editing in Final Cut, I at least love him enough to use an Avid mouse pad. In fact, for ages whenever someone would ask me what I cut it on (meaning the software) his very quick answer was “The dining room table!” Moving on…)
I cannot tell you how many hours I logged on that doc, but it did not matter one whit. I became as passionate and emotionally invested in it as they did, and it made it exciting and amazing and such a learning experience. (The Emmy I ended up winning for it wasn’t too shabby, either).
When they asked me to be a part of Newport, I jumped in with both feet, squealing at the top of my lungs. Hell, yeah, I wanted to be a part of that! As I started pulling in insane amounts of footage, I loved every piece, every moment, I saw. I quickly became passionate, emotionally invested, offered feedback and suggested changes and we tweaked and…then life happened, for all of us.
I didn’t see it through. And that’s what gets me. It’s not so much about the producers or the project (which I still love deeply even if I haven’t seen it in its finished state yet). It’s about me and how difficult it is for me to sit here and wish I had made different choices and remained more a part of it all. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still in the credits, I think (although I’m a bit interested to see *how* because…[shrug]), not that it matters to me. I just hate that I’ve missed the journey. I don’t carry many regrets in life, but that one….
I am so looking forward to the premiere on Thursday. There are people coming in who have been a part of the Newport Folk Festival (the centerpiece of the doc) for years, decades. Impressive people are coming. It’s going to be AMAZING, and I can’t wait to see the friends I made during the three years we made the trek to Rhode Island for the fest. I can’t wait to see how this big, mystical, magical puzzle that I was so closely entwined with in its infant stages has blossomed into a full-fledged feature-length documentary. I can’t wait to remember some of the gems from the interviews that made the cut and regret the ones I still remember that didn’t. I can’t wait to see how it has all played out, shaped by someone else’s hands, morphed from the skeleton it was when I left it to what is surely a wonderful piece now. And I can’t wait to see it, come awards time, get its shot at some trophies because, dammit, it deserves it. The people who have lived and breathed this thing, nursed it and coddled it and shaped it for years, deserve it. And when it wins, I will jump up and down for joy and whoop and holler.
Then, as shallow as it sounds, I’ll curl up into my pillow and try to come to terms with the fact that it could have been me again…if only I hadn’t flaked.
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