June 20, 2002
6/20/02 I'm not sure, but
I'm not sure, but I think this is the shortest night of the year. Much is always made of "the darkest night" (like in the Robert Frost poem) or the pagan glory of the summer solstice, but nary a mention is ever made of how short this night is. Probably because it isn't terribly interesting. Worse yet, it's most likely tomorrow night anyway.
Speaking of long days, we've entered into a curious part of the Pink House moviemaking process: at first, we were just glad that 58 hours of footage can be strung together to tell a story, but now we're trying to refine each tiny, singular moment until it's actually funny. It's as if we took a giant slab of marble, and managed to carve out the beginnings of form, much like the slaves of Michelangelo stuck forever in rock. Now we have to free the slave, make the right chisel marks for toes and fingers, and let the work have its ambulatory freedom. It's pure slogging, and what's worse, the cutting room is stiflingly free of oxygen.
It's strange being this close to a fine cut of the film, I'm finally being forced to think of things that I hadn't considered in well over a year. Stuff like "why is Charlotte winking at Michelle?" and "how did they get the money to hire Hobex?" and all the little plot points that make perfect sense when you're writing the screenplay at the Bourgeois Pig in 1999, but now must be reconciled in full color. It's amazing how much crap can be thrown away, as long as you have reached the point where fighting for unnecessary plot just makes you feel like a moron.
Paradoxically, the last few days have also reminded me of the tremendous, soul-dragging difficulty of the shoot itself. It shouldn't be this way, since now the actors have become the characters on screen, but each time something flies by, each time an edit works, I'm reminded of how arduous and horrifying that scene was to shoot. There are many pictures typifying our unrelenting fatigue on the set of The Pink House, but somehow, this is my favorite:
.jpg)
Tessa and I finding a swingset in someone's yard during the car scenes of the Pink House movie - click on the image to see more