Impulse

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“A poem is never fin­ished, only aban­doned”
 — Paul Valery

Many have gen­er­al­ized this quote to apply to all artis­tic endeav­ors.  On a video for current.tv, Ira Glass pointed out that all artists have excel­lent taste.  They have a clear taste or vision of what work in a par­tic­u­lar medium could be, and they cre­ate because they are dri­ven to demon­strate that taste.  But, there’s often a gap between the artist’s taste and his skill level.  That gap causes end­less frus­tra­tion, and in part gets to the phe­nom­e­non behind the above quote.  Often, an artist’s taste exceeds his skill (or mate­ri­als), thus can never fin­ish a par­tic­u­lar work; only aban­don it and move on to the next project. 

Tonight, I’m con­tem­plat­ing this choice for my movie.  I’ve been work­ing on it off and on for two years now, and have com­pleted two full revi­sions of it.  On one hand, I could con­tinue pound­ing my head against it, try­ing to make it enter­tain­ing to gen­eral audi­ences.  I’m con­tem­plat­ing a com­plete re-cut that would help do just that, and I’d learn a whole lot along the way.  I have no idea how long it would take given that it’s taken me two years to get here. 

On the other hand, I could just decide that the audi­ence for this movie is only those who have par­tic­i­pated in the Race Across America or are endurance cycling enthu­si­asts.  If so, I don’t have to worry about all the expo­si­tion that moti­vates the major re-cut.  I could just con­tinue with the cur­rent cut and fin­ish in a month or so.  And move on to other projects.  Of course, this path involves a low­er­ing of expec­ta­tions for myself — always a bit dif­fi­cult for me.

Hmmmm.….  (where the heck did I put poor Yorick)

While I pon­der this like Hamlet, do go watch the Ira Glass video.  It’s incred­i­bly handy for any­one in the sto­ry­telling trade.  Heck, I might go so far as to say any­one doing any kind of cre­ative work, but then, I’m a fan.  Click the link, then click On Storytelling, then on Ira Glass.

Related posts:

1. RAAM: Finish line