Wednesday, 2/8

The stack of index cards keeps staring me in the face.  Or, at least, it would if it had eyes and could stare.

The stack to which I'm referring is a stack of 91 index cards, each one of which has the information for an interview clip for my upcoming "The Greasier The Spoon" documentary, debuting four weeks from tonight at the Marquette Regional History Center, written upon it.  I have to take those 91 cards, put them in some sembelence of a coherent story line, then provide context through a script, record that script, and then edit it all together to make something between an hour and an hour and ten minutes long that people enjoy.

Oh, and did I mention that those clips added together are already over an hour in length?  And that's even before I provide context and a coherent story line.

This will be interesting.

I really shouldn't be complaining; after all, so many people were so giving of their time and the memories for the interviews.  And it sure beats the alternative--not having enough material, and having to figure out how to get to the proposed running length.  But when you have an embarrassment of riches like this, you have to go through and not use stuff that you really wanted to use.  Not only that, but if you take something out that affects part of the story a little bit down the line, you'll have to change that piece, as well.  In a way it's like a giant house of cards--pull the wrong one out and the story collapses through a sheer lack of context.

Although, in this case, I suppose I should refer to it as a giant house of index cards, which could then collapse under a sheer lack of context.

My job, now, is to figure out what stays and what goes.  And that's why the clips are on the index cards, so I can lay them out, see what goes where, and move them around so that the story, in whatever form it ends up taking, makes sense.  Then I have to do all the other things I mentioned, and hope that the final product does what I hope it'll do.

Bring a smile to the faces of the people who watch it.

So wish me luck.  Hope that I'm able to get that unwieldly stack of cards a little more, uhm, wieldly.  Hope that what I take out doesn't disappoint people who were hoping to hear a particular story.  And hope beyond all hope that four weeks from tonight it's done, it's screened, and it's well received.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but a boy can dream right?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com), fighting the good fight against the stack of 91 index cards.