situationsvacant: In another world

Editors are a funny lot. Some are quite weird and most are very weird. They’re a bit like sound engineers but with shorter hair and better hygiene habits. They spend their lives staring at a computer screen in windowless or blacked out rooms so it’s not surprising that their minds wander to places us normal people cannot reach. Editors like their space. They also like only Mac computers, all gadgets, chocolate biscuits ideally with a toffee filling, takeaways and talking loudly to themselves. Editors don’t like football or any sort of sport. They don’t like starting work before 10 am and they hate directors who yak away incessantly about nothing and who sit too close. This invasion of personal space is something that directors generally have no clue about so constantly infringe the editor’s “if you insist on being here, you must be sitting at least ten-feet behind me where I can’t see you” rule.

It’s lunchtime on day 15 and I make my daily call to Paul, our editor. For the purpose of this exercise you must imagine me brimming with boundless enthusiasm like a child on Christmas morning or a seal clapping it’s flippers waiting to be thrown a dead fish.

Now imagine Paul as the polar opposite.

The call goes something like this -

Phone rings for an age but is finally answered.

‘Hi! Paul! It’s Lisa!”

PAUL

‘Hi’

(Subtext – ‘Oh, it’s you again’)

‘Great! So, how are you? How are you getting on?’

PAUL

‘Fine’

(Subtext – ‘what? what time is it? where am I?’)

Silence…

“ Great!…eh…so..did you see yesterday’s stuff? What’s it like? Is it okay?”

Silence…

PAUL

‘Yep’

(Subtext – ‘what day was yesterday?’)

Longer silence as I wait for him to elaborate a bit.

Eventually.

“Great! Eh so did you see the scene where Tom smears the walls with Mud? …how did that work out?... Is it funny? Is it?”

PAUL

‘Yeah’

(Subtext – ‘which scene?’)

Really long silence

“Great! And ..eh..the one where he’s in his pants on the stairs?....that one….is that one funny?"

PAUL

‘Yeah’

(Subtext – ‘oh yeah, I remember those pants. I have pants like them’)

Unbearably long silence during which I begin to sweat.

‘GREAT!…so…eh…so …eh, I suppose, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?’

PAUL

‘Yeah’

(Subtext – ‘shit, I’m working tomorrow’)

Phone goes dead.

‘Great!’

Now don’t get me wrong. Paul is an extremely nice chap; a very good editor and we get on swimmingly. That is to say that he has learned to tolerate me, never shouts abuse at me or when I am in the room and I have even seen him smile on several occasions not to mention the one time he actually laughed whilst cutting a scene, which is the ultimate compliment from an editor particularly if you’re making a comedy. Both of us were so taken aback by that spontanious burst of mirth that we had to take a half-day to get over the shock.

I have been very lucky in that I have never worked with an editor that I didn’t get on with. It is vital to get on with your editor – you will be spending weeks if not months together in the same dark room with only each other for company where everyday seems like eternal night and the only respite from the increasing madness that ensues is when the runner arrives with Kit Kats and tea.

There was the one occasion when I was working on a TV drama and we needed to get a second editor to cut a football sequence that was in one of the episodes. I had never worked with this editor and on the night before our first day together I went out and got horribly drunk. So drunk that I was still plastered but also violently hung over when I arrived in work the next day. We made our introductions and I knew immediately that if I did not lie down RIGHT NOW I was going to vomit all over her. Now, normally, editing suites provide at least one couch for clients. I suppose post production houses realised pretty quickly that the new style of director that emerged in the eighties was going to spend most of their time sleeping off drink and drug infused binges so began to provide nice comfy couches for them to recover on. Editors like sleeping directors. These couches are normally leather or some other similar fabric, which is easy to wipe clean with always-at-hand industrial strength disinfectant.

But on this day in this edit suite there was no couch so there was nothing for it but to lie on the floor and that is where I stayed for the entire day drifting in and out of consciousness, dribbling on the carpet and occasionally grunting incoherent instructions at this poor unfortunate girl who made the whole thing brilliant without me and I imagine has thanked her lucky stars that she has never met me since.

See what I mean? Editors are just weird.