by Jenna Baker
I managed to get just enough sleep to allow my brain to function marginally and spent the next two days living with my editor in the edit suite. Our first pass at the cut was filled with black and white images and edgy music, but we both decided it was coming off a little silly and staged. Our second pass took a real look at the cops and who they were as people. It told the story of Chaser, a misunderstood drag racer, who got in over his head and paid the ultimate price. It told the story of Rose, a woman who was trying to live the American dream but got caught up in all the greed and corruption that such dreams can often lead to. Finally it portrayed Kitt, a man who had an addiction to adrenaline that cost him everything. We were able to delve into the personalities of our characters and really solicit some raw emotion.
By the end of the day on Tuesday, my editor Rob and I were pretty happy with what we had put together. Rob was particularly happy because he was rolling in overtime pay, and I was happy because the production had a policy that if you worked past eight o’clock, they would pay for your dinner. It wasn’t OT, but I was able to order Chinese from Chan’s, and I feasted on the Chinese chicken salad that I loved so much. I slept at my parents’ house that night and borrowed some of Ginny’s clothes for the next morning. The Valley was just too far and too much hassle for me to deal with. I got to my parents’ place at two in the morning, then turned around and headed back to the office at eight.
The next morning, we went through the first of a long series of notes. Lenny sat in and gave us a boatload of changes that had to be implemented right away. It was standard operating procedure, and I didn’t take anything personally. Sometimes when you watch a cut over and over you miss things, or you think they make sense, but there are some crucial details that are left out. Lenny’s role was to help me make my cut the best it could be, and I appreciated that.
After the morning notes were addressed, we had another screening in which Lenny brought in some of the other producers to take a look. Many of them loved the story and gave me some great ideas as to how to make it even better. Lenny let me know that the executives from the network would be coming over at eight that night to do a final viewing and that I needed everything ready for the upres by midnight. The video that we were working with had been loaded into the editing machine at a low resolution in order to allow more media to be stored on the hard drives. Once an edit was deemed final, the cut had to be brought back to high resolution to prepare it for air. This was a time-consuming process that the assistant editors handled. After that, the cut would be taken to an outside post house that specialized in creating the digital masters. They would do the color correction and adjust the sound mix. It was necessary that I attend the final mix to ensure that the video looked correct and that there was nothing in the shot like a brand name or logo or one of Rose’s nipples that couldn’t be seen during the low-resolution edit. It was an exhausting process, and I knew I would be up all night watching over my baby.
Rob and I took the suggestions that Lenny and the other producers made and were ready to screen by seven thirty. We both took the opportunity to grab some food and kick back for a few minutes before the executives arrived. Rob was a great editor, and I was grateful that I had him. He told me that a truly great editor almost never used the mouse on the computer – he relied solely on the keyboard. That was a skill he had perfected over the years, and he was lightning fast at it.
“Can we break out the beer yet?” Rob asked me drowsily.
“Not yet,” I said. “First we have to see what the network thinks.”
It was a thrill and an honor to own the first episode of the series, but it also could be very frustrating, as oftentimes the network didn’t know how they wanted the show to look and feel until they saw a cut. There were far too many horror stories of networks completely revamping the format of a show just hours before air.
As the executives arrived, I braced myself for the criticism. There were two men in their fifties, one of whom had brought his wife for the female perspective. As we screened, the group was very quiet, and in the end, they had very little feedback.
“Do you have any shots of Detective Reid shirtless by chance? I think the audience would really respond to that,” the wife said to me.
I smiled, enjoying the fact that she thought the man I was involved with was cute. “No, unfortunately, I don’t. He was a little hard to break in, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, you did a great job with him,” she continued. “He was so cool when Rose was flirting with him during her interrogation and when he broke down that door to get the bad guys. Whoo,” the woman said, fanning herself.
“Calm down, sweetie,” the executive said to his wife. “This is great work. I am very happy with it.”
Lenny walked the group out while Rob and I exchanged high fives. It was funny to hear that woman talking about Reid like he was a character in a movie, but then again, he really was. As closely as I had gotten to know him and all the participants on the show, when I worked an edit, I didn’t look at them as friends or even people I knew. They were just characters helping me tell a story.
Lenny walked into the edit suite with a big grin on his face. “Nice work, you two. I think we’ve got a hit on our hands. The guys were already talking about season two out there.”
“Really?” I asked. “Wow.”
“Where’s the beer, boss? We need to celebrate,” Rob said.
“How long will it take you to make those few edits they gave you?” Lenny asked.
“Half hour.”
“Okay, that gives me just enough time to pick some up.”
I was so tired, and I knew I was going to be working the next ten hours straight, but I was also excited and thrilled. I felt like for once, I wasn’t the screw-up whose mom got her the job – I was the producer who just pulled off her story.
I worked through the night moving from the edit suite in the office to the post house down the street for the final edit. We finished up at eleven in the morning, and I called for a production assistant to pick up the tapes and run them over to the network.
I was exhausted but had finished faster than I had anticipated. I debated going to sleep at my parents’ house again, but I was yearning for my own bed. I knew I could be home by noon and could probably squeeze in a good seven hours before the show aired that night at eight.
Now, I knew that texting while driving was not only illegal, but very dangerous, but when you’re crawling at three miles an hour on the freeway you can text pretty effectively with minimal risk. I texted Mac that the cut was delivered. He texted me back that he and the guys had planned for a screening party at Reid’s house that night. He said to arrive at seven thirty and to bring beer. I hadn’t seen or spoken to any of the guys since I left them at the station, and I missed them. As much as I needed sleep, I decided I would set my alarm for six so that I could wake up, shower, and look decent for everyone. Thus far, Reid had seen me in a combination of vomit-stained clothing and evening wear, and I wanted him to know that my everyday look could be pretty good too. I also wanted him to invite me to stay over after the party broke up. I didn’t know where we stood and if we were going to start dating or what, but I knew I shouldn’t overanalyze it either. I liked Reid, he liked me, and I was pretty happy about it – I wasn’t about to spoil it.