17 November 2009
[At left: Anisa, Catherine Oberg, Dave Goulding and John Schwally on location in France, 2006, videotaping for "Monks and Muslims: Finding Faith in Algeria."]
There’s a wonderful device in the Star Trek series called the universal translator (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/technology/article/70299.html). It can translate into your language almost any language being spoken by an arriving alien; and it allows that newcomer to understand you, too. Fortunately we don’t have those, and we’re forced to learn one another’s languages; squeezing us into awkward moments (especially as adults) when sometimes we are reduced to gestures and baby talk. I’m getting good at the awkward moments here in Jordan. Even as I understand more and more of what’s said around me, my ability to respond is limited.
However, there’s a different level of communication pulsing in the edit room. A variation on Gene Roddenberry’s universal translator functions among the screens and the footage and the scripts. The universal edit room translator deciphers tones of voice, body language, and intent to listen. I’ve been studying this language since 1982 and by now I am fluent in understanding the battle of ego and control, the struggle to claim leadership of the creative process, the winner of the I-have-the-best-idea contest. (As if creating a worthy and inspiring piece is a win/lose prospect between team members, rather than a competition among all of us to dazzle all of them.) However, I find I’m still not fluent in making myself dominant if there are swarthy competitors in the edit or in the field – even when my role is boss-lady (I think the nice words for that are “producer” and “director”).
Ideal teams do exist. I’ve had the privilege of working with top professionals who all pull their weight, listen, share ideas and move ahead with the project’s best interest in mind and heart. Like an oiled, finely tuned machine. Like my beloved BMW 320i after Pete Murad, the former racecar driver-turned-mechanic, put his magic touch on the engine. Moving through curves at higher-than-suggested speeds as if the road was one with the wheels. My team here in Jordan 21 years ago fit that bill. Joe Conlan brusquely waving me out of the way so he could get his microphones set in the Royal Cultural Center; Mike Budd braving oncoming cars in Amman’s busy balad (downtown) for shots of the Husseini Mosque. Lou Presti gallantly holding the sungun aloft during an interview with an ambassador in Cairo, as it faded to darkness in the dusking room and we all kept on going ... My team in Kuala Lumpur, Kwa Ndabele, and Austin to introduce the pilgrims of “Inside Mecca.” (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/photogalleries/InsideMecca) Dave Goulding recording the ritual slaughter of two large sheep, up close and personal, hot and aromatic … Plus my remarkable Mecca teams: taping through the nights (no overtime), losing and finding their subjects, wondering if food might materialize in the next few hours. Yasir Khan fighting off the aggressive bacteria cocktails that pervade the pilgrimage; Taghi Amirani taping in a helicopter with no safety belts; Hossam Abouel Magd forging into the slaughterhouse at Mina where 800,000 animals may be sacrifice, and emerging spattered with blood. I’m awed, too, by the miraculous work of my first Hajj coverage crew in 1998. Our batteries died in Mina and Dawud-my-crew-chief-from Sudan rigged up the camera to the car to keep our interviews going through the night; like “Crocodile Dundee” he memorized guards at many-a-gate charged with forbidding passage to all – except us (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week133/feature.html). And the idyllic France shoot of 2006 on the Monks project -- incredibly long days with Catherine, Dave, and John Schwally, but fabulous food and vistas throughout.
But equally there are dysfunctional crews, led by “directors” who fancy themselves the sole creative brain in the neighborhood, directors who cover their inexperience with self-importance, who hide their insecurity in arrogance; one who commands that a team member not even speak with another lest it compromise his artistic supremacy. I worked with one of those in 2001-2002 on the Frontline “Muslims” project (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/).
I jot down notes in the field and edit room regularly. This is dated 2 November 2009: “One of the four noble truths is that suffering comes from trying to edit shots by camera people who don’t know how to edit. Suffering is a product of missing cutaways.”
(Doesn’t Judy Garland famously lament the cutaways that got away?)
Suffering is also a product of long pans and tilts with no motivation. And camera batteries dying just when the most profound statement comes from the person you’re interviewing. Or maybe the microphone wasn’t turned on, as in the heart-wrenching interview with Abdul Karim Soroush in Tehran in 1999 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/).
And suffering comes when I don’t establish myself as the Alpha person, but pretend at democracy. I’m not a control freak but I demand to be shown what I want to see so I may choose whether to use it or not. Suffering is working with editors instead of editing oneself – except for working with someone like Catherine Oberg (http://www.darcproductions.org/darcproductions/Home_2.html) who has the shot I want in place before I even name it; she kindly allows me to show I’m needed by letting me suggest the fine tuning of the audio tracks.
So what’s this big preamble about? Suffering in an edit room in Jordan. (And don't get me wrong: I lead a very easy, blessed and wonderful life. My "suffering" doesn't compare to people who really suffer.)
We are by now nearly done with a short film for Jordan’s Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities, http://www.hcd.gov.jo, and http://www.hcd.gov.jo/englishmain.htm. The HCD is about to launch its first national conference and wants a film to set the tone. I was asked to direct.
The field and edit room universal translators are functioning within normal parameters. Even expanded bandwidth.
The field was delightful. As almost always. It’s one of the special treats of this line of work: we go to places we wouldn’t go and meet people we wouldn’t know otherwise. In October we drove two and a half hours south of Amman to Ma’an, within reach of Petra, to the South Society for Special Education, where persons who are blind, deaf, unable to walk, but otherwise fully functioning get therapies and training to integrate into the mainstream. Persons with mental disabilities also get training and education. Centers like these exist throughout the Kingdom but certainly aren’t enough to satisfy existing needs. I can’t imagine we handle everyone’s needs in the USA either, but at least there’s awareness is greater there. The HCD wants to raise Jordanian awareness and is pushing for inclusiveness, access, and facilities. We met a doctor who wears a hearing aid and can’t seem to get a job in a private hospital so he works in a government clinic. (I hope he’ll at least get a wife out of this film – he’s an intelligent and attractive man.) We met a handful of blind students at Jordan University. The young woman we focus on in the film is a senior majoring in English literature. Imagine printing out all your study materials in Braille! These are courageous, stubborn, worthy people and I’d never have met them were it not for reporting. Our seven-minute short invites viewers into their lives for just a moment, and urges attention to their reasonable needs.
[For American citizens reading this you’ll be glad to know (I hope) that the efforts of the HCD are underwritten in part by your tax dollars, through USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/disability/jordan.html. It’s what’s called “humanitarian assistance.”]
Most of the overlong, over-budget edit days are amiable and productive. One day was an entirely different story. A young producer who works free-lance at Moon Productions (http://www.moonproductionme.com/) was seconded to me to translate while the company owner, who is working directly with me on this project, had other appointments. The young man (I’m being nice – he’s in his 30s and has covered three wars) was (I’ll be nice again) trying to impress me with his capabilities. So every time I asked for something – to see a shot, to hear a bite, to try a cut – he had a better idea. We got to see and try all of his. He could tell the editor what to do. Some of his ideas worked. Some did not. But when I wanted to see if my ideas worked I was begging, cajoling, whining. My disability is language. In the 15 minutes it took for him to tell me why his idea was better we could have checked out and nixed or used a dozen of my picks. In 10 hours we cut four minutes. And the first two had been done the day before, in a fraction of the time. By the end of the day, the “young man” was looking for some of his Iraq war footage to add to our piece on disabled persons in Jordan. I finally said, “Look for those shots on your own time. Right now we are going to use the footage we have.”
Enter the owner, looking dashing, back from some client meeting or other. “How did it go?” he asked. And, for the second time in my career I lost it in the edit room. I said I was not pleased with the process or the outcome because I had been stymied at every turn by the owner’s rep. We were late. We were behind. We were off story. He turned up the volume with, “I’m sorry we ruined your piece! We’ll start all over tomorrow from the beginning.”
“I’m not doing this all over again tomorrow!”
“Why not?”
“I will not spend another 10 hours of wasted time. We will work with what we have.”
“But we ruined your piece!”
“You should have been here.”
“I will be here tomorrow and strictly translate for you. We will add nothing.”
“You are hired to be part of a team, not to be a parrot.”
“We ruined your piece!”
The dialogue was far more interesting than I can recreate – which is why I shy away from fiction. I reenacted it for Katie and for my mom by phone later in the day and they were in stitches. But I didn’t write it down. So you’re stuck with my dulled memory.
It went on for an hour.
The next day boss-man was my soul mate on the job. But later he got into it with our project consultant over some changes requested by the client. Same routine: repeated sarcastic mea culpas and veiled you know nothing’s. I finally grew up, interceded, got blown out of the ring a couple of times, but persisted in quieting them, taking responsibility for all that went wrong (sharing the credit for successes), and gave some important coaching to boss-man: I see a lot of me in you. (He’s half my age?) Talent and temper. Your talent is strong. But your temper can undo you. If you want to succeed and grow professionally you need to control your temper.
“I guess I was pretty harsh.”
“Yes.”
“I should call her and apologize.”
“Yes.”
The apology sounded like more of “you’re an idiot,” but my Arabic leaves a lot to be desired. In response to my wide-eyed look when he hung up the phone he said, “that’s how we apologize here.”
We’ve been here nearly three months. And all that seemed so familiar and easy to adjust to is now opening into layers of complexity. What I don’t know I don’t know is what I’m after now. Turn on the universal translator.
