What Did I Miss?

The DVDs had been delivered for the Lead Participant well over a week ago. Work Buddy calls to generally shoot the breeze/talk about some potential leads, so I ask what the reaction was for LP and the Supporting Players.

Supporting Players: Fine.
Lead Participant: Well, what do you know...

She had been back up to reshoot her interview segments.

In the main feature, there had been times when the soundtrack was nipped and tucked because Lead Participant would start talking, get to an “um” and then leave a gap of sometimes up to four or five seconds before resuming. Which meant cutaway shots have to be flung in to cover the joins.

The rough assembly of the interviews was full of it. Having not had time to get to it, we had blocked sections together by subject matter and made everyone aware that it needed to be fine tuned (and digitally graded). Having not watched the footage for a while it seems it went an um too far.

If that was the excuse to redo it, then fine. But there is always the nagging doubt that, knowing the other people’s responses, a redo gives an unfair advantage. Worse, the forewarning can make the person reshooting their contributions sound smug or too clever-clever.

And then there were the credits. Lead Participant had a Producer’s credit. (Which truth be told, hadn’t exactly been earned). There was also a Co-Writing credit (because she had contributed to alterations in the material written for the voice-over. Now, there was a Co-Directing credit piggy-backed on at her insistence as well.

Huh?

It may not be popular, but I’m of the opinion: you get a credit if you earn it. I told Work Buddy to drop my additional cameraman credit on this one because even though I had shot for a morning, only one or two shots made the final cut. As a whole, what I shot was only a small percentage anyway. And my name was already down for Writing and Editing. Two was enough.

If the Lead Participant understood what the Producing credit actually meant and what the job entailed, she wouldn’t need the other two. But what can you do?

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason.”
-- George Sands