The Answer to the Puzzle

Welp, I suppose it is time to reveal the answer to last week’s puzzle. “What puzzle?” you ask. You remember, right? The one… sticking to… your every waking… like flies on… never mind, I don’t care. I’m a star. Here, read it. This is the puzzle.

Okay, up to speed now? So the best answer was:

“Moviola—isn’t that when a film director accepts a payoff?”

Good answer. And even right on the nose in terms of… never mind. Doesn’t matter, because it’s wrong, even though it’s a good answer. All of you, all your answers were wrong, you know that? What does this say about you? That you’re “interesting”?

The truth about truth is that it is boring. You know, “Truth is stranger than fiction”? That’s a myth. While your stupid answers were more ingenious than mine, they were wrong. As in “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop?” Your answer: “An owl.” Or, “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” Your answer: “Jello.”

As Chinfa, Queen of the Cantaloupe People, posed it to our heroic band of jungle imbeciles: “The Question is not, ‘What is this place?’ but ‘WHO is in this place? And what is it?’” (Except… er, in reverse. Inside-out. I don’t know. Forget it. I’m a star.)

The right answer to my puzzle is: A MOVIOLA is a film editing machine. And why would I use a film editing machine as my nickname? You guessed it. I’m jello.

A Movioloa looks like this:

Nifty, eh? I actually own one. That one pictured. Sad thing is — and this is true — I don’t know where it is. I loaned it to a guy named Hrach to display in his actors playhouse. He put it in a closet until he could get around to shining it up. That was six years ago. We lost contact. If anybody knows this guy “Hrach” or the playhouse with the Moviola in the closet, give the guy a shout from me. I’d like a second chance to install that objet as art somewhere in the world. Or at least meet it and catch up on old times. Someday when I’m rich and idle I’ll do creepy things with it in an art loft.

When I purchased it in 1997 my intention was to use it. And I did, on one film. At the same time, digital non-linear editing was taking over everything, fast. It was now possible to drive a few miles in any direction to cast eyes upon the legendary Avid or Lightworks box (well in Los Angeles). In two years’ time Final Cut Pro would be satisfyingly snubbing the Avid Mafia. But having cut my teeth on film and linear video, I was determined to occupy a unique niche, to be that next generation film guy skilled with the classic tools. Six years later of still having never cut film again, I was devising an interface from Protools midi to a sync wheel on my metal albatross… when I finally woke up to the thought: Bill, euthanize this. Euthanize. This.

This Moviola has taken over your brain and your pad. You need a heavy piece of iron right here against your pillow like you need a hole in your forehead. You are never going to cut celluloid, again. Right? Not when you’ve got Avid Express in your office and Final Cut Pro on your Mac. I’m sure there were lovely people once upon a time — probably your grandparents — who fancied the outhouse as a far more natural thing than a porcelain bowl in the living room. Ew. And where are those purists? Huh? In Grant’s tomb? By the way, you can’t afford ProTools. Say goodbye to the albatross.

Bill: Well… may I just loan it to someone instead? Indefinitely?

Bill: Yes, fine, please get it out of the apartment.

Bill: Okay.

Still, I miss the thing. Sort of.

An upright Moviola is a different animal from the (then) popular flatbed. While you can’t speed through a thousand feet of film in twenty or thirty seconds — and you CAN shred your $400 workprint if you think off color thoughts — the Moviola is, well, respectable. It uses a real projection gate. It’s right in front of your nose, and hands, and feet too. It has pedals. It glows gorgeously in a dim room. It honors your patience. It is Zen.

It is the right way to edit film. It would be my favorite thing ever had I come of age twenty years earlier.

I still think I’d like to make a “How to Edit on a Moviola” video. (Not a film, but a video, cut in Final Cut Pro.)

Bill: …No you wouldn’t. Give it up.

Bill. Shut up. Yes I would.

Nobody ever taught me, I had to figure it out all by myself. Moviolas are still out there, mostly posing as albatrosses. But when somebody finds one in the closet, will she know what to do with it? So let’s make a video to show her. Maybe. Anybody with me?

Bill: Ignore me. I’m not in my right mind.

Bill: Go away.

Bill: Okay. Bye.

— Moviola

By the way, I wanted to recite a Shakespearean love sonnet to the one who had the right answer. You can still try your hand at the right answer. But be aware, now you’re going to have to be awfully right to be convincing, seeing as I already gave you the right answer. Good luck.