Life on the Douro, which I had been editing in separate segments, was finally put together on one timeline yesterday, followed by an elated feeling that it was getting close to being finished. But that feeling ended when I took a second look this morning. All the parts are fine in themselves, but together, it lacked all sense of rhythm and rhyme, and looked like a worthless mess.
One of the problems is the excess of fascinating stories, and I’d like fit in as much as possible. But then it becomes too dense, with people talking the entire time, but without giving the viewer any space to absorb it or reflect on the images. It becomes a history lesson, not a story. The imagery and pace and sense of time are also essential narrative elements; in film, the story is much more than just words illustrated by images.
So after a dark morning, fidgeting, pacing and worrying, the fog lifted and back to work I went, realizing that for all the stories, without the right sense of time and space, Life on the Douro itself won’t form a story, and I won’t have a film.
