Stuff that I have Noticed #26 Mystical Editing

Elizabeth Hepburn’s Better & Better Series introduced me to the concept of mystical editing. As of this writing, January 2020, it is the biggest and most important movie – actually a suite of five short movies – I’ve ever directed and edited.

Better & Better Series

Neither of us is sure of exactly when Elizabeth wrote the first drafts of the concept but we agree that it was sometime in the mid 1990s. Then in 2004 she met my Producer, Eric Brown, who loved the idea and decided to finance the production. So she went to work and began rewriting and fleshing out the scenarios.

After talking with several people she was led to the brilliant Rick Baitz, Eric made a deal with him and we had our composer. EH began working with Rick developing the music and recording the scripts in March 2004. In the physical creation of the five movies that comprise the finished series the work of EH and Eric, covered over six months and that Rick and me more than a year.

EH and I scouted and found our Lake George locations (Lap of Luxury) in March. After many hours of on-line research I narrowed the waterfall (Post-Surgery) locations down to central North Carolina and in April scouted nine of them with one of my two Directors of Photography, multiple Emmy winner Bob Collins, and we found the perfect site. Nancy Grigor of Hamptons Locations showed us a bunch of beaches (Pre-Surgery) and having selected one we were ready to schedule the shoots.

Scouting Pearson’s Falls

All the audio tracks were recorded in Rick’s studio and about a week before the first shoot, EH, with a little help from her director (moi) learned how to lip-synch. This was essential since on the locations where we were to shoot recording her speaking and singing was impractical. A highly focused and fast learner, she was virtually perfect when we shot the scenes.

With a crew of Bob’s advanced students from North Carolina School of the Arts, where he was head of the cinematography department, plus our Director of (nature) Photography, the brilliant Peter Longauer, we shot the waterfall on 9 June that summer. We shot Lake George for two days the following week and did our last principal photography at East Hampton, NY on June 21st. Two of Bob’s students and a fellow teacher (Director of Photography Arledge Armenaki) came north with him to work with our NY crew members for the lake and beach shoots.

At each of these locations (plus later in Westchester County, Central and Riverside Parks in the city, a friend’s home in the Pennsylvania countryside plus on one of our beach vacations) Peter and I shot copious quantities of nature and critter footage.

Once I began editing I realized we needed more beach footage so we did a pickup shoot with Elizabeth and DP Peter Longauer in mid-August.

For each of the five (approximately) twenty-five minute movies – Pre-Surgery for the Patient, Post-Surgery for the Patient, Pre-Surgery for the Caregiver, Post-Surgery for the Caregiver and In the Lap of Luxury – we had shot around two-hundred and fifty minutes of Elizabeth on-camera plus maybe another eight-hundred minutes or more of nature footage. (It was still called footage then since we shot on digital videotape.) Samples of all these pieces are available here.

The Edit

In each of the programs Elizabeth was talking (lip-synch) on-camera for four to five minutes and editing that was the easy part. I just had to pick the best takes and synch them with the recorded tracks. Each video includes a (pre-recorded) song and editing them took longer as we shot all the songs in multiple sites with multiple angles. But the choices were limited and specific so they were challenging but fun to cut.

The remainder of each movie was Elizabeth’s voice giving therapeutic suggestion (also known as guided meditation) underscored by Rick Baitz’s perfect music.

After cutting EH’s on camera work it was time for the abstract, most creative and longest portion of the editing process. I began with Post-Surgery at the waterfall.

I have written several essays and blogs about many aspects this project and other edits but have never written about the near mystical experience of editing the over two hours of the five finished movies. Beyond the aforementioned Elizabeth on camera scenes I had no conscious idea of how to begin the visuals.

Elizabeth doesn’t appear on camera until almost two minutes into the piece. How to start? A special shot was needed for the opening. I played the sound track over and over as I scanned Bob and Peter’s gorgeous shots of bubbling brooks, tiny cataracts, colorful flowers and towering trees. Silently I said, “I need some help here.” And one shot kept “jumping out” at me. I laid it in, tweaked the in point a few times, and it was perfect.

Here’s the opening two minutes of Pre-Surgery. (Watch from the beginning, full screen, sound up.)

I am not a religious person but I do consider myself to be a Spiritual man. While I do not believe in the classic father god and the dogma that accompany that sort of belief I do feel that there may be non-physical assistance sometimes available to us when we request it. This is what I mean by “near mystical experience of editing” this set of movies. Over the year plus that I worked on editing this project I had a number of similar experiences – asking for help – and the results were always excellent.

The experience of creating these videos is my personal masterpiece and I will be eternally grateful to (my twice bride) Elizabeth Hepburn and Eric Brown for making it possible.

With the inception of the concept in the mid 1990s and the final versions going to the duplicator in June 2006, Elizabeth Hepburn’s Better & Better Series was a project that spanned more than a decade. I am extremely blessed to have had a critical role in bringing it to fruition.

You can read all the details of this project (and explanation of the “twice bride” remark) when you click here and get Waiting for Elizabeth.