Video Editing Client From Hell

• Posted on 10th May 2016
• in Entertainment, entertainment books, Film Production, film production book, Hollywood memoirs, Video Editing, Video Production & Editing
• by Ben

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Here’s a

video editing

client-from-hell excerpt from my “love story and video editing” volume, Waiting for Elizabeth:

“It is, I suppose, appropriate that my next job started on April Fools’ Day since I was made a fool by its instigator, Jan Zittsky (unfortunately not her real name), who claimed to be a comedienne. ‘Claimed’ being the operative word.

“When she came in to see samples of my work she seemed nice enough. … and hired me to shoot some of her stand-up and create a demo for submission to HBO. It was downhill from there. …

“We did take after take, stopped and looked at the footage then did another. This shouldn’t have bothered me since I was billing by the hour but after the first sixty minute tape was filled I was ready to be finished with this job. The friendly person with whom I had sat the day before had evolved into a harridan. She even seemed to be mad at me because she was fouling up her own words.

“… Her entire routine was vituperative, based on anger at the entire medical establishment for a series of perceived malpractices which had been perpetrated upon her helpless person. It was very nasty, unfunny shit. Lewis Black makes anger funny. Jan Zittsky did not.

“But I was professional and held my opinion close and did all I could to support her and get this over with. And finally it was finished with three or four hours of tape from which to cut a thirty minute (too long) demo. The fun never stopped.

“… Because she hadn’t known her own material well enough there were many stops and starts in her vitriolic monologue resulting in many takes of various sections. In a normal edit this would not have presented much of a problem but merely taken more time to select the best – in her case, the least terrible – takes. However, as by now you can imagine, nothing was easy with this virago. We struggled through and got a cut then she decided that ‘you (one) can’t edit comedy, it has to be a continuous take in order to work.’ How she devised this absurd concept I have no idea. Had she never seen a George Carlin or Richard Pryor HBO show? …

“As you can now see I was dealing with a singularly irrational person and in such an environment one is always in the wrong. The term ‘impossible situation’ comes to mind.

“… After several aborted efforts we finally got a complete take which was, in my opinion, too long. Not only that but after the time and stress already expended combined with the fact that Jan Zittsky did not possess the professional chops of, say, Lily Tomlin, the performance was strained and flat. If it was merely not funny before; now it was practically lachrymose.

“Her lousy performance seemed to be my fault.

“But we finally got an edit she could live with, I made dubs and got a check for nearly $1,500 which, at the time, I sorely needed. It went into the bank the next morning and I started paying some bills. The mistake I’d made was to hand over all the tapes, including the edit master when she paid me and left.

“Two days later I got a letter from the bank: All the checks I’d written had bounced. Jan Zittsky had cancelled the check. Never again did I give up all the goodies until the check cleared.

“I sued Zittsky in Small Claims Court. She didn’t even show up and, of course I won. That’s when I learned the difference between winning in court and actually getting the money.”

Click here to get more video editing and other stories (most more fun than this one) in: Waiting for Elizabeth.