Another One Down

Just finished editing the "Frozen Lemonade" show footage that I shot three weeks ago. Took the better part of those three weeks to edit. I edited together footage from the two nights of performances into the one tape -- I am very pleased with how it looks, I must say. I was able to *tweak* a lot of things through the magic (and deceit) of editing. So the performances of the pieces that can be viewed on the tape never actually happened. They're largely constructed, some more than others. If an actor flubbed a line reading on the 2nd night, I could use the clearer reading from the 1st night. If a cell phone rang during a crucial moment on one night, I could scotch-tape in the same moment from the other night.

Yes, in a way it is no longer an accurate representation of the actual experience, but what tape is? Most of the tapes people have made of their shows look like utter shit. They're nearly unwatchable. Ugly, static wideshots. Coulda been a great show, but it looks like fuck-all on videotape. All that work, relegated to choppy memories. I understand that you can't replicate the experience of live theater on a tape -- that why I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to capture the *spirit* of it. Why do people spend weeks or months preparing to do a show, put it up for 2-3 nights and not even bother to get a decent document of that work?

The answer is probably that people aren't willing to pay for it. [The secondary answer is that most people/groups just don't have that kind of foresight.] Now, if I could only *convince* people to pay for it...