Postpartum Depression
I am putting this out into the universe -- do guy editors suffer postpartum depression?
Let me explain -- you put your heart and soul into making something good, beautiful, poetic, creative, inspired, possibly fun and it just ends. You pack up your toys, you thank your clients, you hope they thank you and you go away.
Now I admit this is the life of a free-lancer or consultant, (whatever you want to call it), and it is expected. You have been doing it this way for 30 years, but you still don't get over it. A staff person sees everyone they have worked with on Monday morning, but anyone who works on a film crew, as a sound mixer or on an editorial staff knows, when the job is done -- you are done.
How do you feel after you have given birth to your film?
I read a lot of postings on various industry blog sites, but they are all about critical mass technical emergencies. Not about the serious steam-blowing ranting of a stressed out human being (doing), who has stared at a monitor 12 inches from their face for 12 hours for 12 months doing the 12th version of the same 12 seconds again. Editors have feeling too!
I had a laugh with a veteran editor friend of mine who said, "I have become an angry editor." "How so?", I asked.
He proceed to tell me the same story with different characters and settings, but the same plot. I suggested he had postpartum depression. "You aren't angry, you are depressed." I explained that because I am a woman, I can use that analogy, but men don't necessarily understand it. Then I nearly shouted, "You have just given birth to your 100th creation -- your baby, your child." He looked at me -- shook his head, "Sorry darling, you stick with your metaphors, I'll stick with mine -- this is a battle that I have to win -- at all costs." Birthing or battles -- you choose.
Let me explain -- you put your heart and soul into making something good, beautiful, poetic, creative, inspired, possibly fun and it just ends. You pack up your toys, you thank your clients, you hope they thank you and you go away.
Now I admit this is the life of a free-lancer or consultant, (whatever you want to call it), and it is expected. You have been doing it this way for 30 years, but you still don't get over it. A staff person sees everyone they have worked with on Monday morning, but anyone who works on a film crew, as a sound mixer or on an editorial staff knows, when the job is done -- you are done.
How do you feel after you have given birth to your film?
I read a lot of postings on various industry blog sites, but they are all about critical mass technical emergencies. Not about the serious steam-blowing ranting of a stressed out human being (doing), who has stared at a monitor 12 inches from their face for 12 hours for 12 months doing the 12th version of the same 12 seconds again. Editors have feeling too!
I had a laugh with a veteran editor friend of mine who said, "I have become an angry editor." "How so?", I asked.
He proceed to tell me the same story with different characters and settings, but the same plot. I suggested he had postpartum depression. "You aren't angry, you are depressed." I explained that because I am a woman, I can use that analogy, but men don't necessarily understand it. Then I nearly shouted, "You have just given birth to your 100th creation -- your baby, your child." He looked at me -- shook his head, "Sorry darling, you stick with your metaphors, I'll stick with mine -- this is a battle that I have to win -- at all costs." Birthing or battles -- you choose.
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