FILM FEST! (and rant)

PENN TOWER 711B - I'm pretty excited yet nervous for the film fest tomorrow because it's the first time most people will see the (almost) complete "Sleep." I'm not quite happy with the cut we're showing because it doesn't have sound effects and our composer didn't have time to write music, which I blame on my editor (not to mention any names). Basically, he's been a real pain in the ass the past couple of weeks, doing his own thing and shunning my involvement in the editing process. He waits until the last minute to edit everything then complains to me about how much sleep he's lost and work he's missed. I had a talk with him the other day to tell him how frustrated I am with him, but he refuses to acknowledge that he's done anything wrong; he's the victim. He even went to so far as to suggest to the reporters for the paper that we're co-directors, which is far from the truth. He may have stepped in for some of the shots to give the actors a little direction in regards to movement and framing and such, but that's only because I let him because it would have made things more difficult if I had said something. He tries to second-guess me, and I realized that small things like that aren't worth arguing over because he won't admit that he's wrong. One thing that really annoys me is how he always tries to defend his arguments by bringing up examples from films that he's memorized all the facts for. Using other films as examples for our film is fine by me, but he uses them as definitions and as a guidebook to how things "should be done". For example, when I tell him our composer needs a rough cut so he can get to work, he says the composer will have to wait for a complete cut, because, after all, the composer of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" wrote that score in 3 days. For one thing that composer was a professional, and for another, "Sleep" is not "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon". That's what bothers me the most. I'm making "sleep", not some other film, and I'm not some other director, I'm my own man. I can choose to obey the rules or break them, that's my prerogative. I'll follow my gut instincts as a director over something that another film and another director has already done. If I stick to the rules and emulate other films then filmmaking will never evolve. If a painter always emulated the classics and never tried to live and learn by his own mistakes, then painting would become a boring rehash of what came before. Film is, in my opinion, an art, and as such it can't be defined or made to obey rules. Think of the filmmaker as an artist, and while he can be influenced by past works, he shouldn't be defined by them. He needs to explore and discover new ideas, that is what filmmaking is all about.