"Making it" as a filmmaker

I realize that this will probably sound all noble and perhaps even a bit trite who knows, but while it would be cool to "make it" as a filmmaker, I'm really sort of indifferent as to whether or not I do. If I end up getting the chance to make films for a million each or more great, but if I get stuck making my little hundred dollar films that's fine too. I do it because I love the process, I do it because it provides an outlet for my creative energy and I do it regardless of the profit potential.

However, there are tasks in the process which, if I never had to do them again would be fine with me. The truly big pain in the ass for the moment is logging footage.

Directors on documentary films with real budgets will have production assistants logging every minute of film or tape shot. The logs will typically indicate a timecode, and some comment on what was said, etc. A couple of projects that I was asked to edit had the logging done for me and I have to say that it downgrades a "fucking horribly arduous task" to the level of "arduous task".

For my Silver Eagle documentary, I currently have about 20 hours of footage that really needs to be logged. After watching/logging just one hour of it last night, I'm ready to just hire some kid to do it. Yeah, there's a lot of great stuff to watch and I love the subject, etc. but it can be a bit mind numbing. In addition to this, at the pace I'm going, I won't be done with the logging for another month.

Another troublesome (at times grueling) task is editing. I have to say that I'm sort of torn about editing though. On the one hand, I feel like I'm starting to get fairly decent at it, and I think there's a part of me that likes doing it because I have control over the pacing, flow, shot selection, etc. On the other hand, I dread having to do it because, I can't do it until the vision for how I want the project to flow hits me. Scripted stuff is easier, because you can pull the screenplay out and follow that. I plan to try with the Eagle documentary to have some form of an outline to follow for the content, but there's still a visual style and flow that you want come up with that to me is independent from the story elements that you want to convey, and that's where the art of it comes in.

It must sound like I'm whining, but I'm not really... Well, on second thought maybe I am whining a bit, but as much as I hate these tasks at times, I can love them more than I hate them. I say this because there are always moments either when you're logging or editing where you run across a little gem that you forgot that you'd shot, you find just the perfect sound bite, or you work out a sequence that fits perfectly and everything falls into place. So as much of a pain in the ass as these tasks can be, it's really great as a filmmaker and director being forced to do them all at this stage because it gives you a great insight and appreciation for ALL aspects of the filmmaking process.