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Editing: Film/Scene Length Opinions

Metrostar

Metrostar

I am editing a feature length drama. I started out with 1hr 45mins of film, which I have since cut down to 1hr 30mins. I showed it to someone in the business and he said that it sill drags. I can see his point, but it's a drama that takes place over a few months, with outside scenes that show a change in the seasons and I was going for a slower pace to hopefully convey this time period.

Anyway, yesterday a fellow filmmaker that I am friends with copied some text out of a book on editing and sent it to me. The text says:

"A movie story should start as late as possible and occur over the shortest reasonable span of time. A film that uses too much time setting up the ordinary world of the characters or that spreads over three weeks a story that can be told in three days will feel slack.

In individual scenes, don't waste valuable time on unnecessary entrances and hellos, see if a scene can be started in the middle. A screenwriter or director who is willing to self-edit will often find that a scene is strengthened by cutting the first two, and often last two, lines of dialogue."*

So, my question is, how literally should I take this advice (especially the second part) and can anyone with experience of editing feature films chime in with their own opinion?

*Sorry for not getting the source of the quote.
 
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If you get the chance check out "The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing." It will not solve your problems, but will give some insights.

The first edit of the first feature on which I ever worked was 140 minutes (2 hours, 20 minutes). I got whittled down to 105 in the second edit. Fortunately, the director was taken under the wings of two industry "rebels" who were formerly with big studios and were branching out on their own. They chopped it down to 83 minutes. It won at two festivals and showed at many more. The events in the film took place over the course of many months.

What I learned was that you must pare it down to essentials. If you can't describe your film in ten words or less you can't shoot or edit properly. So what is your film about? And "cliché" labels are okay. It's a rom-com. It's a heroes journey. Etc., etc., etc.

Michelangelo is reputed to have said that the sculpture was already in the marble, all he did was chip away the unnecessary bits. So define what your film is about, then pare it down to the basics - chip away the unnecessary bits.
 
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I've never edited a feature, but I'll chime in anyway..

it's true for individual scenes, but for a film as a whole it's more complicated than that.

when it gets to serious dramatic point in the film you're supposed to slow down the pace, but you can't have slow scene, after slow scene, after slow scene, after slow scene.. the pace should change throughout the different scenes in the film IMO.

Take french connection for example.. there is a really, really slow foot chase that goes nowhere.. the guy knows he's being followed and just goes and eats dinner instead.. then later on WHAM we are hit with one of the most intense car chases in cinema history
 
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Ten words you say... A woman obsesses over a man with a dark secret.

This is great stuff guys. Please keep it coming. I will have a closer look tonight after work. Thanks so much.
 
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It's very good advice.

However, you seem to want your movie to have a slower pace. Each film
has its own pace and no general bit of advice is correct for all movies. In
general audiences want to get to the point – I know I do. I don't mean
fast pace – I mean I don't want to feel I'm waiting for something to happen.
Perhaps your movie needs to “drag” - to be a slower pace to convey a time
period.

It's from Neil Landau's “101 Things I learned in Film School”
 
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Ever watch a 3hr movie that feels like 90 minutes? Or a 90 minute movie that feels like 3hrs?

As with all rules, they are made to be broken - but only after you have a complete grasp of the rules.

I don't think that it's the implied length of time that is the issue here... I'm thinking (without seeing and based on the info from my first line) that you film drags either because of the story or because of the editing.

Slow pace does NOT mean boring.
 
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I showed it to someone in the business and he said that it sill drags.
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This means death. It could mean that it's too slow for what it is, or it could mean your story is told in the incorrect order, started at the wrong place or isn't holding your audiences attention etc.

Your job as an editor is to work out how BEST to tell the story to the audience. For this, you need to work out what the audience wants. I have to say, I haven't heard an audience member ever say, "I wish this was more boring" or "I wish it dragged on more". Most audiences want to be entertained. Some need action all the way through, some want interesting characters, others want drama. What does your audience want?

As Rik said, each film has its own pace. This doesn't mean you can slow the pace of the film down and bore your audience. There are plenty of slow scenes that still hold the interest of the audience. If the pace of your film is slow, you still need to be able to hold the audiences interest and attention. This may not be possible with how the film was produced/shot/written. If it's not possible to deliver exactly what the audience wants, your job is to come up with the next best option.
 
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Have you done a test screening with an audience providing feedback as to which scenes work/don't work for them & why? I found that that can be very helpful.

In my feature, we had 2 back to back long, talky scenes - one was fine but when we got into the 2nd, it was waaayyyy too slow. Through audience feedback, we came up with the idea of splitting the 2nd scene into 2 parts, and the director/editor found a creative way to make that work.
 
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Metrostar said:
I am editing a feature length drama. I started out with 1hr 45mins of film, which I have since cut down to 1hr 30mins. I showed it to someone in the business and he said that it sill drags. I can see his point, but it's a drama that takes place over a few months, with outside scenes that show a change in the seasons and I was going for a slower pace to hopefully convey this time period.
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Firstly, I should mention that I've never edited a feature but in my position I obviously have to directly deal with the picture editor's output.

Far and away the most common complaint against indie features is that they are slow and boring/uninteresting. As a general rule then, always be looking to increasing the pace, even more so in this instance as you have already been told that it currently drags! Cutting non-essential scenes can obviously help, as can reducing the duration of the scenes by topping and tailing them. Another, more advanced, editing technique is to speed up talking head type scenes by cutting between the protagonists early and more often and using L-Cuts frequently, although a number of different takes, angles and reaction shots are required to bring this off convincingly. One of the best examples of this type of editing are many of the conversations between De Niro and Pesci in Raging Bull. The tension and pace of these conversations in the finished film are near perfect but they didn't start off that way from the actual footage! Raging Bull is a real masterclass in the art and skill of the Picture and Dialogue Editors.

There are other tools/techniques available to the filmmaker to increase the perceived pace. Sound Design and Music are two obvious/common tools which can increase the perceived pace of a scene/film and can be particularly useful when you don't want to reduce the duration of a scene but do need to increase it's pace.

Something to watch out for though is the creating of shape. While the overall film may need an increase in pace, that doesn't necessarily mean every single scene does. How you juxtapose faster, higher paced scenes against slower ones creates contrast and shape, which when used appropriately is one of the most powerful of filmmaking tools, keeping the audience interested when otherwise you'd loose them to boredom. In addition to the macro "shape" of the film derived from the juxtaposition of the individual scenes there is the micro "shape" of the actual scenes themselves to consider, as I described above and demonstrated so well in Raging Bull. And, as Sweetie said, both the macro and micro pace/shape of your film is mostly defined by the precise genre of the film/scene and by it's target audience.

G
 
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Ok. It's 2.40 am and I have to get up for my real job in three hours. I just want to throw these two videos out there, as this is what I have been doing for the last three hours...

I started with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9XK7v_gls - Which had a number of problems. Mainly, my friends girlfriend being on the camera instead of him because he had a presentation and she couldn't keep the girl's head in the frame.

I ended up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mqr8nM-LhA - This is what I have been doing tonight. Not just starting to re-build the sound, but taking on board your advice and trying to shorten the scene. Not only that, but trying to lose the camera that crops the girl AND the auto-brightness crap as well.

Anyway, I have read your replies and they are awesome. Really good advice. I will answer properly with what I think shortly. I got distracted tonight with this scene. Thanks again!
 
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Metrostar said:
Ok. It's 2.40 am and I have to get up for my real job in three hours. I just want to throw these two videos out there, as this is what I have been doing for the last three hours...

I started with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9XK7v_gls - Which had a number of problems. Mainly, my friends girlfriend being on the camera instead of him because he had a presentation and she couldn't keep the girl's head in the frame.

I ended up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mqr8nM-LhA - This is what I have been doing tonight. Not just starting to re-build the sound, but taking on board your advice and trying to shorten the scene. Not only that, but trying to lose the camera that crops the girl AND the auto-brightness crap as well.

Anyway, I have read your replies and they are awesome. Really good advice. I will answer properly with what I think shortly. I got distracted tonight with this scene. Thanks again!
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I like the first one better. The second cut is more efficient in showing us the events that take place, but the first cut is the only one that shows us the emotions involved. I'm all about keeping editing tight, but don't choose brevity over heart.

There is no rule about length. If there's one thing I can teach you, I hope you'll accept this as truth -- EDITING IS 100% SUBJECTIVE. There is no right or wrong, there is only what you prefer. You should edit a scene to be as long as it needs to be, and not one single frame longer. But only YOU can decide exactly how long it needs to be.
 
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Metrostar said:
I think the lesson I am slowly learning here is to try and strike a balance between brevity and what I want the scene to look like for me.
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From this, I'm not sure the lesson you're learning is the right lesson! Brevity and what you want the scene to look like by themselves are irrelevant. As an editor, you want to tell the story in the most compelling and engaging way possible, everything else is at best secondary to this requirement. Brevity and what it looks like is only relevant when taken in context of the requirement to create the most compelling and engaging story telling. Note that I'm talking specifically in terms of the story and not in terms of the plot or the script. In a drama scene like this one, the dialogue covers the plot but the way the dialogue is delivered (the timing between the words, the tone and emphasis of each syllable), the actions and reactions (body language, facial expressions, the way the necklace is handled, etc.) of the actors, all of which is defined by their characters' emotional responses, is the story.

At the moment, the scene appears to be typical indie fayre; mediocre/poor acting (delivery of lines, reactions, emotional responses, etc.) and instead, more of an emphasis on framing and cinematography. And to make matters worse, the cinematography doesn't appear to have anything to do with the story, so at it's best is nothing more than window dressing and is detracting from the story! Decent/interesting cinematography is possibly enough to engage other photographers/filmmakers but is un-involving and boring to your average viewer. So, what can you do as the Editor with the footage and tools at your disposal to focus the story, make it more engaging and get rid of everything else?

G
 
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The story behind the scene was that it was really windy and I was trying to get good sound. So we crouched down and tried to use the car as a windbreak. The sound turned out crap and I am having to redo it anyway. I should have just decided that on the day of the shoot, composed the shots better, instructed my friends girlfriend better about manual controls OR just used one camera and done it all myself. I screwed up. Now I am trying to fix it with the footage that I have.

I can't really cut the scene, as it's a flashback to seven years earlier, that ties in with the shock reveal flashback at the very end of the story. I kinda liked the poor acting in this scene, it made the two characters seem different to their seven years later selves. Maybe I am just seeing it that way because the way you see it is really bad (because it is) and I can't accept it!

I really appreciate the advice I get from this website.
 
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As an editor, you want to tell the story in the most compelling and engaging way possible

what can you do as the Editor with the footage and tools at your disposal to focus the story, make it more engaging and get rid of everything else?
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This ^^^

I will say it again.... This ^^^
 
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