So I finally got a rough cut of my short. Kids and other commitments don't allow for the time it demands. Script was 18 pages so I thought I'd get about 16 minutes of film. I generally like what I have but one problem, it's 33 minutes! And there are still scenes to add. I understand that long shorts aren't popular with festivals, which is what this film is intended. Is 40 minutes the length of a feature for most fests? The film is visual, long sections of no dialog. I don't know if that works against me or for me.
Help! My short isn't short!
- Thread starter brianluce
- Start date
LOL!
Yeah, my four.five page screenplay WITH DIALOG for "Destroyer" turned out to be a 8+ minute short even WITHOUT dialog, so... I know what your saying about your "fat cut".
Some of the wonderful folks here at It seem to be quite interested in editing for others.
Hopefully one or two will step up to the plate, you guys can kibitz behind closed emails, upload your "fat cut" (likely in pieces), and see how someone else carves your Christmas goose.
"Brunn-bruuunnn!!"
Yeah, my four.five page screenplay WITH DIALOG for "Destroyer" turned out to be a 8+ minute short even WITHOUT dialog, so... I know what your saying about your "fat cut".
Some of the wonderful folks here at It seem to be quite interested in editing for others.
Hopefully one or two will step up to the plate, you guys can kibitz behind closed emails, upload your "fat cut" (likely in pieces), and see how someone else carves your Christmas goose.
"Brunn-bruuunnn!!"
I'd vote to finish it up as you see it, with the additional scenes, and post a rough for folks to watch and offer input & feedback. Gotta get some eyes on it, either here or elsewhere.
I'll start sharpening my knives.
I'll start sharpening my knives.
I think different festivals and governing bodies have their own minimum lengths for a feature. I've read it begins as early as 40 mins.
@OP: In practice, you want to give yourself enough time to tell your story while staying somewhere between the 80 and 120 minute mark. Reason being, anything shorter is usually too long for a short movie and not long enough for a feature which the theatres would want to show. Anything longer starts becoming too long.
That's just the general and usual case. Of course there are exceptions. For eg, we expect and want epic blockbusters like LOTR to be long.
18 page script becomes 33 minute film probably means you either wrote entirely visual action stuff, your actors thought your work reminded them of Harold Pinter (that was a cute reference to the very long pauses in stage direction in Pinters work, I was a theatre student before switching to film) OR more likely- you need to learn to kill your babies, which is a skill, not an art and absolutely required by filmmakers who want to edit their own shit.
Seen it, the first cut is a awsome mini series....
Can you describe your film in ten words or less? Once you've done that have another editor chop it down for you. It's always great to get another pair of objective eyes (or in my case, ears) on your work. They haven't succumbed to the "forest for the trees" syndrome.
Finish the cut you've got. Post it for us to look at or just walk away from it for a couple days. Then come back to it and you'll find places to trim.
So how long would my 62 page script be on film?
Theoretically an hour, but it depends on the script.
The first cut of my last 12 minute movie was over 20 minutes.
Tightening is a process. First you cut entire scenes or entire shots. Then you work in ever smaller increments until it's as tight as it can be (or you hit the hard runtime you are going for). By the final pass with my editor I was having him tighten literally frames at a time. "The cut from that medium to the closeup could be 6 or 8 frames tighter".