Knowing when to cut

The biggest mistake a lot of film makers make, especially when they are starting out, is to include everything they shot in the film. Sometimes they equate film length to film quality, but that could not be further from the truth. Never make that mistake. Knowing when to cut is probably the most important tool.

Films are made in the edit. The story, emotion and pacing take priority. You never want your film to drag. I often think of the scene from 1958’s ‘The Blob’ where in the middle of this crisis these teenagers decide to race their cars backwards for fun. It was a scene that added nothing and just brought the film to a crashing halt.

This recent film of mine, ‘Only Mine,’ had about five minutes of footage that I cut and the reason being is I felt some scenes were redundant and added nothing we didn’t know already. To include them would just insult the audience’s intelligence and waste their time, and you never want to waste the audience’s time.

I believe this final edit makes it a very tight and well told story.