Start. Stop. Start Again.
I am best at beginnings. When I was single, I loved the fluttery first weeks of dating. I have a million old screenplays that stop on page 30. I adore TV pilots, but rarely finish a series. I crave newness. When I worked a 9-to-5, I would regularly take different routes home so I wouldn’t get bored. I don’t listen to albums the whole way through – I prefer mix tapes where the artist and genre radically change from track to track. I crave surprises.
This is why I’m naturally suited to film sets. A wise director, Joan Darling, once told me that film sets are the “Super Bowl of serendipity.” If you stay nimble, you’ll find unexpected presents and epiphanies around every corner. Each day presents a fresh set of impossible challenges waiting to be turned into gifts. If you’re someone who is able to harness the power of the unexpected, you’ll see your film evolve into something spontaneous and fresh. I get high on that process. I duck, spin, and dodge through the set, eyes on the end zone, glory in my sights.
If shooting a movie is like playing in the Super Bowl, then editing a movie is being dragged off the field, shoved into a cubicle and told you can’t see other human beings until you analyze all the game statistics by hand with no calculator. Or rather, that’s how it started to feel 9 months into working on 5 Pilgrims. Once we had the film in the can, I fell into a well of exhaustion and resistance. How was I ever going to sort through all that footage, much of which was improvised? Once I dragged myself off the floor and started editing, I realized this was to be a marathon, not a sprint. My spirited on-set energy was no help to me now. I needed another kind of energy.
My friend who practices Ayurveda talks about humans having three kinds of energy – creation, destruction, and sustenance. Creation energy helps begin things (see above.) Destruction energy helps end things; as anyone who dated me in my twenties knows, I have no problem with this kind of energy. Sustenance…that’s the hard one. I’m the person who doesn’t remember to eat and would pay someone else to brush my teeth every night if that was a thing. I’ve had some of my worst fights with Frank, my fiancée, about how often I do (or don’t do) the laundry. Habits and regular patterns don’t come naturally to me.
Editing is all sustenance energy. Day after day, you have to go into the dark cave, stare at the screen and chip away. You do a screening, get notes, and go back into the cave the again. Day after day. On and on.
When I was actually editing, I loved it. I’ve got a secret introvert inside of me, so I enjoyed the quiet collaging of putting shots together. What I didn’t enjoy was dragging myself back to the same computer every morning to face the same challenges as the day before. What I didn’t enjoy was focusing on only one project for almost two years. Where does the spark that inspired you back at the beginning go after two years?
My relationship with Frank is the longest I’ve ever had. I remember the year where we shifted from the honeymoon phase to something deeper. When our delusions and projections about the other person cracked – as they must – and we both had to look at who the other one really was and fall in love with that person. I understand why couples break up at this point.
Creative groups have the same trajectory. I developed 5 Pilgrims with Darty Hall on a rush of excitement. It was our first major project together. I loved the actors, I loved the creation process, I loved the characters we were developing, I loved driving up to a mountain together…and then things got harder. We had a rough and tumble time on set. We learned about each other in new contexts. Projections broke. Now we’re past the honeymoon phase – what comes next?
It’s the same with 5 Pilgrims. It began as a beautiful ideal in my head. Then we shot it, and I was excited about all the surprising, wonderful things we filmed. And then I got into the editing room, saw what we’d really captured – strengths and flaws – and I had to mourn the loss of the movie I thought I was making. I had to dig in for the harder, longer work of putting together a real film. Ideas and dreams are easy. Crafting something tangible and good is nearly impossible.
But somehow you do it. Somehow I did it. Scene by scene. Day by day. Hard won lesson after hard won lesson. I got a lot of help, support, guidance, and pep talks from generous friends and Darty Hall members. And somehow that well of sustenance energy started to fill up.
I’m happy to report that the movie is finished, Darty Hall is still together, and Frank and I are getting married this January. And when I look at all these things – the real versions, not the ideals I started with – I am surprised. It’s a different kind of surprise. It’s not the fluttery rush of something new, but the deeper joy of discovering that people can change, grow, and evolve. Art can change, grow, and evolve. If the movie I saw in my head at the start was the same one that existed now, why would I have bothered to make it?
Now it’s time to walk 5 Pilgrims into the world and get people to watch it. The challenge feels overwhelming. Endless.
So I take it one person at a time. And after that person, another. Chipping away viewer by viewer, day by day, on and on.
Lauren Ludwig
Director, 5 Pilgrims
dartyhall.com