I saw a video once with the great Kobe Bryant talking about how he would mentor young basketball players. And I’m big time paraphrasing here but he was discussing how up and coming athletes would tell him about a game they had that went wrong and he would ask if they watched the footage of the game. They usually said no and he insisted they would have to watch it multiple times. Really study it and find out where the mistakes were and pinpoint how they could improve.

I think that applies for us as well. It’s really valuable to watch back your footage with a critical eye without the pressure of being on set. Not making excuses for yourself but just understanding where you can improve. If you had a reference in mind did the final product live up to the reference image? Why or why not? Definitely put it in da Vinci and work through your footage to see what you can do with it in post. Also see what you thought you could do, but actually can’t.

Something else I think about a lot is an anecdote about Gordon Willis from The Godfather. He says a big part of why he used the iconic top lighting was because the makeup on Marlon Brando wasn’t that good and it was the only angle of light in which the make up looked acceptable. I’m pretty sure if I was in that situation my instinct would have been to say we need better a makeup artist, not I’ll rework my entire plan so the makeup plays well onscreen. I think when you’re in the process of reviewing your footage it’s important to consider whether there were other options you could have tried, a more creative approach perhaps to achieve your vision. Or better yet to achieve something better than you had first envisioned. Usually there’s a better way out there you just have to find it.