The Best Policy

Things are moving along with post-production. We’re deep into the fine cutting, meeting a couple times a week with our awesome editor Stephanie to look at scenes. As mentioned before, the first cut of the movie was two and a half hours. We’re aiming for a tight, fast-paced 90 minutes. Which means we’re doing a lot honing. A lot of taking out the air. And a LOT of trimming lines.

The writers out there might be upset to hear this. You sweat over a great monologue, write 12 drafts of it, and do extensive research on so you’d get all the details just right. Then the actors come in and reduce the essence of it to a well-chosen glance.

But guess what? This is a good thing. Film is a visual medium. It’s about emotion, immediacy, drama. Words can very easily get in the way of all that. If you can accomplish the same thing with less, great.



They say a film is written three times: when you write the script, when you actually shoot, and when you start cutting. This is especially true in our case. We’re adding a whole extra layer of style in the editing – flashes, jump cuts, weird audio overlaps – that we didn’t even dream about when we were working on the script.

The best thing you can do when you enter post production is forget everything that’s come before. It’s easy to go into the editing room and have a vision of what the movie should be in your head. But a lot of times, that doesn’t gel with what was actually shot. Don’t worry about what your intention was, or how tough things were on the day – try to look at your footage as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Really be honest with yourself about what works and what doesn’t. Forget what your “goals” were and pay attention to what the actors are actually doing. A lot of times, you’ll find you have something much more subtle and cool than you planned on.

And again, that’s good. Film is, at its best, a collaboration. It’s a bunch of people getting together and hopefully coming up with something better than any of them could have done on their own. And the best way to do that is be honest about your footage. If something’s not working, or it’s not necessary to the story, cut it. It will make the movie better and your audience will thank you.