You have a vision. You write a screenplay. You pitch it and pitch it and pitch it to people with money and a sense of adventure. You go out on location with an intrepid band of film artists and work outrageous hours to capture your vision on film. Then you arrive in a quiet editing room where all your footage has been dumped--five or more years later--and you collapse.  And you pray to the God of your understanding that your editor sees the vision you had all those years ago because after the war you've waged to bring it home--it's completely lost on you. 

  

And God sends you Jim Stanger. 

  

And he quietly begins reassembling your vision. And finessing it.  And lavishing love on it.  And when you see it again--what was so clear in your mind all those years ago but better now--you cry.  And Jim hands you a box of kleenex and keeps working.

  

A great editor, I suspect, is akin to a great OBGYN (I checked with my wife and she corroborated this metaphor). You swear you'll never do it again then you see your shiny vision out in the world and you think: okay, maybe one more time. 

  

Jim Stanger is a great editor.

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Patrick Coyle, Director

The Public Domain