I Cannot Be Summoned Like Some Mongrel Blog!

Feeling down and fighting a bit of depression today -- admittedly, related to the newest episode of Spitefully Yours. On the one hand, we're trying to make the show thrive and I'm still obligated to sell it, but... Truthfully, this is possibly the worst episode thus far and the first that I'm dissatisfied with. It's largely due to the sound, which our resident professional was unavailable for. Thus, I was forced to do an uncomfortable hack job, and it's (apparently) clear in the cut.

On the one hand, I know every good director (and especially a bad one) needs to learn how to deal with rejection and criticism. But the perfectionist in me is so devoted to this series and selling it as eternally successful that simply packing it up and saying, "Well, we suffered this time; best to keep going" doesn't feel good enough. There's no closure or appreciation for all that I've done the last two weeks (and more importantly, the long and late hours each of the past couple nights). I'm not ready to file the episode and chalk it up as "one of the bad ones" because a) it's a good script with good actors and b) I don't feel like I CAN live with a defeat on our (young) Spitefully Yours record. Misfiring so abruptly is not just bad for business, it's CRIPPLING to get new viewers (we need) and to keep our old ones (who are few and fragile). I suppose I should count my blessings that we went three in a row with such success -- certainly having our first "fail" on the fourth episode has bought us time to secure with viewers that the show and its characters work.

That's secure, right? I don't know, I'm paranoid now. Not just our audiences need to believe it's good, but the people who help make it as well. This is definitely more stressful than making shorts -- this is a lore and legacy that needs to be upheld for a full season...

So I'm torn about where to proceed now. Our Christmas episode is literally breathing down my neck, but without Beard to rely on again, it's made me very nervous that we can't pull off a successful show until he's back. Part of me wants to get the next episode rolling as fast as we can to cover and move on from this one, but the other part of me hates the idea of going the rest of the month with this episode being the current selling point to keep watching.

When I think of going back and re-editing sound even more, though, it truly melts my mind. The balance of pulling voices up and pulling camera sound down is like winning a race without moving your feet. I've already made adjustments once, so I don't know how many cuts I'll be doing and consequently being unhappy with the results of. I'm just not sure enough good can be done to the episode without Peter and his audio work -- and I don't want to spend time switching back and forth between making cuts that are too quiet and making cuts that have too much background noise.

This was never so big a problem when we captured sound on the camera. I don't know how to explain that...

Schedule-wise, I'm also potentially losing a week to help volunteer on a friend's set. His project sounds good and I want to be helpful to him, but GAWWSH DAAARN IT, why does EVERYTHING pile up all at the same time?!?! This couldn't come up when I'm between things? It's gotta hit right in the middle of production on our biggest (and maybe most vital) episode -AND- my supposed final cut of Batman and Spider-Man Save Christmas??? Who comes up with Planet Earth Schedules? Not only do projects suffer, my health suffers, my sanity suffers, my mood suffers, and anyone dealing with me suffers. Nothing ruins everything like EVERYTHING overlapping EVERYTHING.

So as always, rather than flake or leave anyone hanging, I'm instead bent on doing BOTH and hoping the backlash comes down on me and not on my work. I can guarantee a very frazzled AJ for the next two weeks as he goes berserk finding props, actors, and locations WHILE he films with them, just so he can "edit" a full cut AND record with the voice actor BEFORE the short film starts SO THAT we can actually get our usual sound engineer to save us face this time around.

May the Lord God grant me superhuman endurance and unearthly speed to accomplish all things in all places by all deadlines.