Being They

There's this lesson that I theoretically learned in high school, that maybe a lot of young creating people learn. It happens when they try to connect with relatives by showing off something they have made. The thing that they made might be a video, and the video might be selected because it contains some tricky bit of movie magic, the kind that serious young editors tell themselves is designed to never be noticed (if it's any good). But still, they of course hope that it will be noticed, and appreciated for its cleverness.

It won't be. That’s nobody’s fault. The relative is probably somewhere between well-meaning and not-too-interested, and hasn’t taken the young person’s film theory course or read their book of Walter Murch interviews. They have a mortgage to worry about.

And so— this is the lesson-y part— the only feedback these well-meaning relations have available for a young filmmaker is to point out whether they appeared onscreen, and for how long.

“No, I’m not in it,” the young person says, “I built the sets and drove the car and took care of the dog between takes and made the explosions when the aliens open the ship and I guess I was an extra in one scene where—”

“Oh really? So you are in it! Tell me what time in the movie so I can skip to it!” A few words on how smart "They" were to include the creative young niece or what fools "They" are to have not shown the creative young grandson on screen longer.

All to say, I walked right into it again. Years later, and I’ve never figured out how to explain the accomplishment on display is being "They."