I knew when I saw Sarah’s profile that I would want to work with her. A film editor with a martial arts background, interested in Japanese animation: she was perfect on paper – she was better live: a lovely lively young woman, with a quirky side smile, and a very pleasant enthusiasm.
I met her a couple of times in the city to discuss what I wanted and give her the files, but I let her do the work on her own. A few weeks later, I went over to her place in Taylor’s Lake. She picked me up in front of a gym – appropriate – and drove me to her house. I was very impressed by her edit. Longer than I thought, elegant, smooth. I gave her some feedback – first scene too fast, second scene too long, a of the dance sequence out of frame, and a red cable appearing on the take she’d chosen for the last scene. But overall, I was very happy with her work. After that afternoon, we only backed and forth twice before I was fully satisfied.
But she was not over then: she was going to supervise the colour grading - the complex technical task of unifying colours, contrast and lighting levels. And there was work to do: the urinal scene was too bright, and the colour of the walls in the dance scene varied from light pink to greenish. I’m still surprised at her enthusiasm for that kind of technical work, but she did beautifully. She came to my place this time to show me the result of her first go, and I had very little to feedback on – too much light still in the urinal scene, and a weirdly pink sequence when the two men do their swan kiss, that was about it.
