honest question about brevity on this. If you ignore the it was TARGETED as a commercial, does it still FEEL too long? Pretend its a mini short.
Thanks
Needless to say, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but after watching it again, pertaining to your question, yeah, I would cut it differently. I wouldn't shorten overrall length by a whole lot -- probably by less than ten seconds. But what I would do would be to have their lines (and actions) butt up against each other.
One thing I like to do when editing dialogue in which people are in conflict (and that's pretty much always) is to first see how much I can put each line on top of the other, then back off just a tad. I'll have one person's dialogue in one track, and the other person's on another. I'll move one line further on top of the other, so that they're interrupting, and give it a look (listen, really). I move it again, just a few frames, and listen again. Move again, listen again, etc. I don't really see an exact science to it -- each line of dialogue calls for it's own rules. Sometimes I find that it works best if one person is completely interrrupting the other, starting their dialogue while the other finishes their sentence. Sometimes, I'll insert a pause in there, that we didn't shoot. For each cut, it's trail and error, but I always start by seeing how much I can butt them against each other.
In watching this short, I think I would definitely have many of those lines of dialogue right on top of the other, one starting immediately after the other finishes. Ditto for some of the actions. Like punching him in the gut. That can come sooner.
For all of this, we're only talking a few frames here, a few frames there, but I am of the strong opinion that in editing, every single frame is of the utmost importance. It's these few little straggling frames that affect the overall feel of an edit.