Make It Count

I’ve talked before about my Top Three Pet Peeves of Short Films:

1. Bad Acting – Please, guys, there is so much wonderful talent available. Take the time to *cast* your film.

2. Bad Sound – If you can’t hear the movie, what’s the point?

I’d like to talk about #3: It’s Too Damn Long.

So you’ve made your short film and you’re in the editing room and you’re on the fence as to whether or not to cut something, be it a line of dialogue or a character beat or an entire scene, and you’re going back and forth because it MIGHT be cool or it’s KINDA funny or it SORTA works …

Cut it.

What’s that line from RONIN? “Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.”

Cut it, cut it, cut it.

Here’s the thing I’ve found: no one really knows what a short film is. I’ve asked countless folks how long they think a short film is, and the answer is always different: “5 minutes”, “10 minutes”, “A half hour”, “I dunno, shorter than a feature.”

Really, the answer is “as long as it needs to be”.

Key word there being “needs”.

I saw a short film recently that opened with two girls dancing at a club, and we followed them in the bathroom and watched them do some drugs, and we learned their names and watched them kid around for a bit … and then the movie cut to something else entirely, forgetting completely about the two girls. They were never referenced again. We spent at *least* a minute with them, and they were never heard from again – why were they there in the first place?

Cut them.

I saw another where a guy was trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend … and then we cut away to a TV show he was creating on a public access channel. We saw this guy starring in the show, telling us all about his life … and had no bearing at all on the getting-back-with-the-ex storyline.

Cut it.

It’s difficult, because you’ve spent all this time storyboarding the shots, and shooting the scenes, and editing them together, and you want everyone to see *all* of the fruits of your labor. You’re proud of your stuff and you want to show it off, dammit.

But is every shot absolutely necessary to tell your story? Does every scene build character/advance the story/deepen conflict? Does every edit logically lead to the next? Are all of your characters vital to your story?

No?

Cut.

Here’s a fun exercise: invite your friends over to watch a rough cut of your film. After the screening, have a no-holds-barred critique session. Really discuss the fine points of the movie – are there edits that could be smoother? Transitions that could be made clearer? Dialogue that could be cut? Chances are, after the session, you’ll be a little depressed … but take a week or so to digest everything. Try to go back and look at your film with fresh eyes. You might surprise yourself with how much shoe leather you can get rid of.

Be objective. Be merciless. Take the time to service *the movie*, even if it means cutting the stuff you spent extra days shooting – your audience won’t miss the boring stuff. I’ve heard this many times in film festival audiences: “Yeah, that was a pretty good fifteen minute short … but it would have been an *awesome* ten minute short.” Brevity is the soul …

With a short, you have a limited amount of time to tell your story.

Make it count.

Danny

Marking a movie is not about getting cool shots

Movie-making is all about making tough decisions. Directors and producers, especially, have to make dozens of important decisions every day, and the number of decisions increases exponentially when you move from pre-production into production.

(This is especially true if the director and producers avoided making some hard decisions in pre-prod, or -- far worse -- didn't realize there were hard decisions to be made in the first place. There's a reason why shooting scripts tend to have lots of "[this scene omitted].")

One of the toughest decisions is this:

"Do I want to get a bunch of cool images on film, or do I want to make a movie?"

In other words, you can only get so many shots in a day. How much time should you spend getting the cool, exciting, cinematically-difficult shots that will make for good 'trailer moments'? How much time should you spend getting the relatively dull shots (like coverage of a dialogue scene, for example) that you will need to actually edit together a movie that makes sense?

So: Do you want to get a bunch of cool images on film, or do you want to make a movie?

It may seem like a no-brainer when phrased that way - we're filmmakers after all, not cool-shot-getters - but filmmakers stumble over that decision every day. And even when a filmmaker realizes that decision must be made, it's often complicated by outside influences.

What if you're nearing the end of your scheduled production period, and you're a day and a half behind schedule, and you have to choose between the cool sequence that got you interested in making the film in the first place, or the comparatively dull sequence that sets up the premise of the whole movie? Which one do you cut?

What if your best friend plays a character in the cool sequence, and he thinks this role is his big break as an actor?

What if your investors are on set, and they've been looking forward to seeing how you execute the cool sequence? What if the cool sequence was part of your pitch, and it's one of the reasons why they gave you money in the first place?

There can be lots of valid and compelling reasons why you want to get the cool sequence.

But...

What if you do get the cool sequence, but that means you don’t have time to get the necessary sequence ... and now your editor won't have the footage he needs to cut together a cohesive narrative?

The average director, of course, would say that you don't have to cut either of them - this situation is exactly why God invented 'pickup days.' But pickup days aren't guaranteed. I've seen a number of promising productions lose steam and eventually be abandoned because they weren't able to get the footage they needed during their allotted shooting days, and for one reason or another they were never able to do pickups.

Money runs out. Vital crew members move on to other projects. Actors cut their hair or gain 30 pounds or move back to Poughkeepsie. You can't count on pickup days.

So, if you can't count on getting more time to shoot, which sequence do you cut?

In a way, this is a litmus test for what kind of director or producer you are. Are you into sizzle, or are you into steak? Are you more concerned with telling a cohesive story or with getting a great trailer moment that will help sell your project? This situation can reveal where you stand on the age-old "style vs. substance" spectrum.

For me, the answer is simple. (It's not easy, but it's simple.) Get the sequence that will allow you to cut together a movie that makes sense. Try to schedule a pickup day to get the cool sequence. The cool sequence is the icing on the cake -- but you need to have a cake in the first place. Icing by itself quickly becomes cloying.

We are movie makers - we aren't cool-shot getters. The story is the thing.

Film & Wine & Scum!

Such an irresistable combination, dontcha think?

This weekend, the Children of Scum are heading to Johnstown, PA for the Johnstown Film & Wine Festival! SoCalFilm's Who's on First: The Movie played there last year - thanks for having the SoCallers back, guys!

If you're in the area, stop by to watch a film, have a glass of wine - and say hi to the Children of Scum!

Danny