The Opacity Filter

Alien Observatory. My office. Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Just before midnight. Da Boss is in and won’t stop talking about Steve Albini. “This man was a sonic saint. He recorded PERFECT albums by Nirvana, Pixies, Joanna Newsom, Whitehouse, Jawbreaker, Songs: Ohia, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Don Caballero…” He trailed off, still looking at his phone. His neck hurt; he told me. “Monica, get me a pillow.” I waved him off with a feather on a wing he took to asking me how the latest rough cut was going. His eyes went wide. “Oh, uh, yeah, glad you reminded me about… that… I’ll be right back.” And then he disappeared for three hours. Where was he? I was in HIS house!

So he comes back three hours later with a new bounce of the movie. Rough work mix 3, “or 4,” he doesn’t remember. It’s May 9 now, just after one a.m. “I think we can use the Difference, Exclusion, Subtract, and Divide features without getting repetitive. I’m going out to shoot some new Christmas light footage.” Da Boss was gone again, so I decided to light up and kick back and watch this new assembly of my great work. This is, after all, my film—one Da Boss promises he’ll say, “was found in the editing room by the beautiful and lovely and talented Ms. Monica Quibbits.” But for now we have the pain—we have to finish the movie.

Segments with significant work left: the title bit “SATUR-19” (need more early 2020 background footage), “Whenever I Died a Thousand Times,” “Suddenly Last Decade,” uh… I think I finished “I’m Glad It Wasn’t Me” last night. This time, they crossed the 180 line—no shots of an actor looking right. None. Couldn’t reverse them. But there were a few slow zoom shots of the same actor, still facing left, but with the change in composition and movement, the problem was obscured. Okay—and the lens was smeared, but just enough to make it look more expensive looking. “I think that means it’s broken, Monica.” Da Boss paced and paced, muttering trivia about Nirvana behind my back while I worked.

So many shots of the sun. “Big Tuesday,” a major segment as it recurs throughout the movie, one with many actors but not action, a blue room full of people with drawn faces and hanging in the air was that she was dull razors. Now his dribbling was getting to me. I told him to put his own music on the PA and show me where to put them into the movie. This is what got him going, as always. “Cue here, voice to come.” Voice to come? “Yeah, I recorded that yesterday.” Okay, where is it? “Let me get my hard drive.” Da Boss returns with a thin FedEx USB drive full of fresh drones, guitar feedback, throat singing, and an enormous amount of sound that was heretofore unavailable to me. Why? “I wanted to see what you could do with what I made last year. Here’s a fresh batch.”

And I still couldn’t find the right place to put “Big Tuesday,” the song…

—Follow Monica Quibbits on Twitter: @MonicaQuibbits