It always starts slowly. Every time I have taken on a project where I know there will be no quick gratification (like a 2-minute video blog that takes a day), it really takes will power to get the process going. In high-school physics, we learned all about mechanical advantage, and thats the best analogy I can summon. Its like gears... it takes very little effort to move a small wheel compared with a large wheel, so the same amount of effort yields more rotations the smaller the gear. So imagine the number of rotations as a measure of excitement and that feeling of accomplishment.
With a small project, you get that gratification quite quickly. Its also easier to focus because you know its just a day or two to put together a 90 second piece on FInal Cut. But when you are looking at a 70 minute project, you are talking one big-ass gear. And it takes some time to move it all the way around, allowing the smallest measure of satisfaction.
It took me about two weeks, but I stepped back and took a look at how far I had come. All said, the results in terms of narrative look pretty darn good. I have edited a 3:30 opening, and have probably edited about half of the Kosrae narrative, which will clock in around 15-20 minutes. And when I watch the parts that have been scrupiously sliced down as per Occam, I find myself smiling.
As a special bonus for my few subscibers on Blogger and Networked Blogs, I will post part of the opening (mybe 1:30 to 1:45) for a day or two. But first I have to get some B-roll from a third party and do audio sweetening. I want it to look almost broadcast ready before I let it out on vimeo. So if you read this through a post on FB, you might want to subscribe so you can see it when its finished.
As an addenum... I put the segments I have edited together back-to-back. I have been working on the opening narrative, a primer on corals, and then the Kosrae segment. The rough edit extends to 32 minutes. I expect that I will wind up shaving anywhere from 4-10 minutes to this part in terms of the narrative. So I have reason to feel some gratification. After this, I work on Florida (which is probably going to be 5-7 minutes of general bleaching storytelling, followed by 10-15 minutes of Ken Nedimyer's project), then pick apart Corals of Trawangan to tell the biorock tale (15-20 minutes), followed by a small segment (5 minutes or more) on the medicine hunts underway on our shrinking reefs.
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