The End Is The Beginning Is The End

"I'm gonna' go ahead and say," I tell Chris, "That this thing's turning out even better than I might have imagined."

It's 11:23 on a Thursday night. He's has been working on "Mister Rogers & Me" since ten o'clock this morning. I walked over after twelve hours at The MTV.

At the moment, we're re-cutting the very, very end of the film. Chris is patiently responding to a obsessive compulsive disorder that compels me to tap out time on the desk and ask him to cut to it.

"It needs to breath more," I say. "I want people have time to think."

We've been "finishing" the film forever. People don't quite understand just how many micro-adjustments there are in this process. Today, for example, we added three new VOs, two new photos, two segments of b-roll, an epilogue, plus dozens of small deletions and timing tweaks. Every edit brings us closer to its original vision.

Tonight, I even indulged myself by imagining our premiere.

"Do you think Susan Stamberg will come?" I ask Chris. "Bo would, right?"

Chris stares at his four monitors, intent on moving us forward one keyframe at a time.