To Thine Own Selves Be True

I feel like I am waiting for the weight to lift from my shoulders. It is just sort of perched there now, no longer bearing down on me, but not exactly lifted either. I don't think I will be able to completely relax until tomorrow evening, after I pick up the compressed/rendered, burned DVD of the rough cut of the movie from Charlie, and then watch the whole thing through to make sure nothing is wrong. I mean, there is still going to be lots of things wrong with it, it is a rough cut. But I mean, I want to make sure none of the scenes that I have put together so far have done anything weird, like today when two of the songs that I had laid in mysteriously disappeared and I had to do the work all over again. I am sure it is something that I did wrong, which is why I was anxious to hand it off to Charlie, as it is far less likely (knock on wood) that he will screw it up.

On the way home I was driving past Belvedere Square, which is a mid-point between my place and Charlie's. I had not stopped in Grand Cru, owned by my friend Nelson, for some time, and I thought to myself, why wait to get home to celebrate? I didn't think he'd be there but I actually caught him in, shared some wine, invited him to the screening, and caught up a little bit.

On the way out I picked up a couple bottles of Framboise. Oh my GOD do I love this stuff... perfect to raise a glass to at home, by myself, while I let out an enormous exhale... which is exactly what I am doing right this very minute.

I may actually even sleep well tonight. I have not been able to drift off before 4:00am (and usually 5:00am) for the last 4 or five nights. Usually editing until at least 3:00am, then it takes me awhile to wind down.

It is such a mixed bag of emotions right now. Relieved, in that, as long as all goes well with the burn, I don't plan to do any work on the movie until after New Year's, giving me about two weeks to enjoy the holidays, friends and family, without feeling guilty that I am not working on the movie. It will be the first time I can really do that... well, in about a year! If the weather in the Poconos isn't too brutal, I want to get up there for a few days in the beginning of January, for once not to lock myself away and work my ass off, but to actually RELAX.

It won't be long-lived, though. I am happy with the rough cut, but it is that, rough, and there is still so much work to be done. The edits themselves, the cuts, need some finessing, smoothing over, drawing out some transitions so they aren't so abrupt, shortening others so they aren't so long they get boring, and I need to shave about ten minutes off the whole thing altogether, while somehow adding a scene that I wasn't able to finish in time for the rough cut. But the two things I am EXTREMELY anxious to do is the color correction and getting the music just right.

Music is weird. I have to watch more movies to see how it is really done well. The problem with watching movies is, for me, that I get so sucked into the story that it is hard for me to dissect it, to watch the cuts and transitions and lighting and angles and levels of conversation laid over background music, etc, etc... But I am kind of glad for that. I definitely see movies differently now, and I know I always will, but so far, making a movie has not completely ruined me for watching movies the way that growing up in the restaurant business ruined me for eating in restaurants for a very long time.

Now that I think about it, and actually HAVE THE TIME to indulge my stream-of-consciousness for the first time in... I don't know... skip back through my postings and you tell me... the difference is Baltimore.

My Dad owned and operated restaurants all my life, I grew up behind those scenes, and later waited tables and eventually managed a four-star restaurant in Washington, D.C (the Coeur de Lion, in the Henley Park Hotel). I used to make my Mother crazy because, just like my Dad, if we ate in a restaurant I had to sit with my back to the corner so I could observe (read: critique) every aspect of the room, the service, the presentation, and of course the food. I was constantly making comparisons, which at the time I think I enjoyed, but in retrospect sucked some of the fun out of it.

But movies are kind of different, or maybe it is just that I am different now, after having been in Baltimore for eleven years. I love eating in restaurants now, much more than I used to. I still notice things, I haven't unlearned anything, but it just doesn't bother me like it did when I was all my "Type-A" self back in D.C. I do see movies differently now, and I find myself talking about them constantly, dissecting them with other people who do the same thing. But I haven't lost the ability to get lost in a story. I do find it a little bit harder now, though, if it isn't a good story, well told.

I'm just... happier here, and I was pretty happy in D.C. Baltimore and D.C. are two completely different planets, though. Luckily, being a Gemini, I can appreciate them both for what they are. I am a business person, so one side of me relates to D.C., but I am also an artist, the side of me that relates to Baltimore. It took me a long time to be comfortable referring to myself as an artist in the company I keep here, because I know so many very, very talented artists. In D.C. it was easy to consider myself an artist, none of my friends were, really. They were all into politics, business. None of them wrote, painted, or even played an instrument that they ever mentioned. When I started making friends in Baltimore, I was so overwhelmed by the talent I met that at most I would consider myself to be "creative".

It has been a long journey, and I have had my hands in a lot of things since I have been here, but I finally feel I have found my voice, found what I was meant to do. I always liked the restaurant business, it came naturally to me, and that led to the hotel business, which did as well. But business is what I do, or rather, what I am capable of doing. Being an artist... that is who I am.