Most painful deleted scene.

[Caidh Mor]

I was running through some of my footage from prior projects recently, and stumbled across the ending sequence for a short that I wrote that was released as part of an anthology on DVD. Of all the shorts on the DVD mine was perhaps the most well received, but I tended to get one critique above all else:

"The ending feels off."

I was really nervous until the first time I saw the DVD and saw why. They cut my ending out to cut out the couple extra minutes necessary to hit the running length we needed for international distribution.

I enjoy the project and all we managed to pull of with it, but every time I see it, I'm reminded of my ending, and left to question how much better or worse it would have been received with it.

My question to everyone else is this:

What is your most painful story of a scene that you've had to cut? Why did you need to cut it? What happened as a result?

 

[Cracker Funk]

The most painful for me was a musical montage that we just didn't have time to shoot. We were running short on time, and extending our schedule was not an option. The montage was a day-in-the-life of a main character who is down on her luck, showing how she uses her wits to get by "on the streets". Mainly, I was sad to lose a particular scene in a laundromat in which our heroine displays both resourcefulness and a kind-hearted spirit. Alas, it wasn't to be!

I'd share the details of this scene with you, but I plan to work it into another one of my planned future projects.

 

[NickClapper]

We shot one half of a scene and then the actress had to leave to rehearse for the Olympics opening ceremony. She was busy with that for the rest of our shooting schedule and it worked out that, if we wanted to shoot the second half of that scene (like 1 script page) then we'd have had to pay an additional £300 at least which, I grudgingly decided, wasn't really worth it. Still, it's a pity.

 

[knightly]

In our short "Scavengers"... the closing shot was wonderfully dynamic with one of the actors slipping, falling, getting up and continuing to run making that fantastic sprint feel even more important... but our cars were parked just of frame left and the camera man was avoiding getting them in frame (post apocalyptic thingy)... so the fall (perfect as it was) happens just off frame. No time to reshoot it as this was nearing the end of our day light and we had to move to interiors. Bummer.