Day 214: It only feels like I’m going backwards!

Day 214.  My producing partner—on my documentary High School 911—who has been taking the summer off to finish the film, informs me that he’s starting back up on a big show…like any minute now.  Two months earlier than we’d thought.  Which means only one thing.  You guessed it.  Yes, I’ve got to get back on the Avid.  Deep sigh.  Look, I get it.  Money makes the world go round and I’m thankful for it.  But the reaction is visceral.  A body memory that doesn’t like what it remembers.  I spent the first six months of this year, hyper focused on doing my part of the editing.  I won’t even go into the last five years.  It was intense, it was hard, I got it done, I handed it off to Producing Partner and Dan the Amazing Editor Man to finish.  I can now focus solely on my new venture, my films, my passion projects.  Not so fast.  As I excitedly mentioned in some report in the last couple of weeks (which day escapes me at the moment), it’s an “all decks on hand” type of energy for the project to be completed but I didn’t really believe I’d need to be one of the actual deck hands this go round.  It turns out I need to be a deck hand.

During a meltdown on my walk this morning, I realized that what I was feeling was a bit of abandonment, a touch of frustration and a pile of panic that I was going backwards—that the whole film is once again on my shoulders and I’ll never get it done.  But the truth is, I’m not in the same place I was before and neither is the film.  It is much further along and there truly is a team of editors working on it.  I am not alone!  By the time I finished my walk and I was back home doing yoga, I had shifted my thinking and was figuring out how to create from what I now have.  Which has suddenly changed.  But that’s okay, what we have changes all the time!  It’s time to think outside the box inside the box and get creative with what I have.

Just a quick side note:  I’m practicing what I preach!  Woo hoo!

Here’s the deal.  I love this documentary.  I LOVE it.  It’s an incredible film that needs to be finished and find its audience.  I can’t wait to share it with the world.  I have to suck it up as the producer and do whatever it takes to get the film done.  And if that includes sitting my ass back down in the editing chair—so be it.

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…and do whatever it takes to get it done.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media.

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