how it's done (right)

so just after midnight last night, i sat down to cut together one last scene for the day... i'd been working on stuff from early in the shoot (which was also from early in the script) with joe and mike's characters and it was going okay. mostly, i was just lining things up to be polished at some point in the future when there was more context around the scenes. but so i start cutting together this nice little bit - it's the first time that colin and aaron (best friends 4ever) have to themselves after recently reuniting. it's a simple, two-shot scene set in a very cramped hallway at the basement pub where the characters just sort of chat and establish the situations for the first act. but, damn, those boys knocked it out of the f-ing ballpark. i digitized two takes from joe's angle and three from mike's and between those five times through the scene i had a terrific and uncommon range of reactions and emotions to select from - and without needing to cut around continuity! contrary probably to what i was telling him, mike gave me a slight variations of frustration and playfullness and cockiness without fully changing character. and joe did the same thing with his frustration, depression, and absurdity. both of them provided me with perfect little clips that can be interchanged and shuffled around without disrupting the flow of the scene or causing any awkward breaks of character. it was really fantastic and surprising putting that scene together with so much ease. so, hats off to joe and mike. additionally, hats off to bob ham (bobham!), who hid in the bathroom for several hours that morning, flushing a toilet on cue and then squeezing his large manly frame into an impossibly small gap between the camera and the wall (you can read his version of the story here: HERE! (scroll down to July 11)). i'm really excited to see this all coming together...