Wrestling With The Word Vomit And Finding A Filter
I’m a control freak. Anyone who knows me personally can attest to this and is probably saying, “Finally, you admit it!” to themselves right now. I like to be in charge. When I’m not in charge, I like to be the one to decide that, so I’m still in control of my lack of control.
My need for control is a vice, but not one so bad that I feel compelled to do anything about it. It does result in unnecessary stress and anxiety, so a doctor would probably totally disagree and say that I’m a stress ball from hell, yet I see it as also serving an important purpose.
Over the last year I’ve done more film and television work than ever before. Writing is a beast, but being on camera is a totally different monster. When I write something stupid, I can change it before it’s posted and eternally available to the world. When I say something stupid on camera, it’s there for good. I’m not the director, producer, or editor, so I don’t have final say over what gets edited out or not. I need to proactively filter what comes out of my mouth…something I’m famously horrible at.
Directors LOVE this. I don’t filter, say whatever is on my mind, and call horrible things wonderful because I have a twisted sense of humor and forget sarcasm doesn’t translate. I’m a director’s wet dream.
Luckily, I’ve been able to work with directors that make me want to sound like version of me who isn’t completely crazy. Yet when 6 hours of interviews are condensed into 3 minutes, it’s almost impossible to not feel like some words have been twisted, taken out of contested, or emphasized incorrectly.
Recently, a filmmaker that I’m working with sent me the rough cut of a documentary I am in that is going to be released on Canadian television later this month. There was 1 sentence in the whole 45 minutes film that wasn’t exactly as I’d like it. If it was an article, I’d be able to log into my backend and fix it or email an editor with the correction, but it isn’t as easy with film. I agonized over whether to tell him, not wanting to create trouble when it was a relatively small problem.
When I did email him, I was surprised that he understood and worked with me to get a sound guy over to my apartment later that day so that we could re-record the line. What would be a quick fix in my normal medium took a sound guy, two hours, a long distance phone call to the Director in Canada, and a whole lot of fuss.
If only I’d watched my words to begin with, if only I’d been more precise, it could have been avoided.
Precision is, for me, absolutely key to getting a point across. However, the longer you talk about something without break, the less precise you get. Worlds blur together in my mind and meld into a mess of ideas and concepts that come out of my mouth before I have time to properly fact-check or filter.
And yet, I’m a control freak, so I beat myself up about my word vomit after-the-fact, unsure of exactly what I said and how it might be edited, interpreted, or construed.
Then I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m human, that while I have chosen to voice way more of my thoughts publicly than most people ever will, it’s ok if everything isn’t perfect.
Being diplomatic isn’t my strong suite, and luckily I’m not running for office, but it is something that I’m working on. I don’t have to be Switzerland, but maybe refraining from (sarcastically) calling the absurd rate of incarceration among African American men “wonderful” might be a good place to start.
I’m reining in the word vomit on camera…or at least I’m trying to.
You be the judge of how well I do 🙂