The film crew is a chat window. We still have notes.

The We Are So Done take

We have a film idea. We have had it for years. Unfortunately, it required a camera, a crew, some locations, a schedule and a number of people willing to take our spaceship seriously. The folder was called something like final_concept_v3. Nothing in it moved.

This is where we become extremely easy to sell to. Give us a way to turn that folder into scenes we can watch and we are interested. Let us fix a disappointing moment without starting everything again and we are already thinking about the next scene. The embarrassing idea might finally get its chance to be an embarrassing film.

Then we look at the job we have reserved for ourselves. Explain the intention. Choose a take. Ask for a change. Decide when the result feels right. It is a familiar promotion: more responsibility for wanting, less responsibility for the hundreds of operations between wanting and seeing.

We would like to believe our notes are the part that cannot be automated. They are subtle notes. The pause should be sadder, but not that sad. The ship should look expensive, but not as though we are trying too hard. We have developed a lifetime of taste for exactly this moment.

Of course, asking the assistant what is wrong with the scene is also useful. Perhaps it sees the pacing problem before we do. Perhaps it suggests the missing shot. We can accept that suggestion without accepting any uncomfortable conclusions about the importance of our own contribution.

And we will. Because now there is a film to improve. That matters more, in the moment, than defending every old step required to make it.

We are finally in the director’s chair. Please do not ask who wrote the notes.