It’s Not The Length of Your Film, It’s How Fast It Moves.
Cutting ain’t easy.
Let me tell you a little about me. See, I have a tendency to over-think and over-work things. I scheme, I plan, I contrive to the best of my ability in order to fulfill what I speculate to be the the best result for whatever project I’m working on. Unfortunately this generally backfires on me because I tend to sacrifice artistic integrity in order to please the masses.
Screw the masses.
And while I’m at it, screw artistic integrity as well.
The masses are fickle and artistic integrity if not kept well within limits leaps right into the domain of pride which the Catholics made a mortal sin for a reason.
These days I’m looking for the middle ground. Filmmaking seems to be, if nothing else, about making compromises. People who say they don’t compromise are lonely idealistic fools or soon-to-be-dead tyrants.
I’m currently in the throws of applying these punchy little catch phrases to the editing process on Refrain. See the argument over which a compromise must be found is; do I cut the movie down to an easier to swallow 90 minutes or leave it at its current 110 minutes. These days I’m seeing movies geared toward the mainstream running as short as 80 minutes, credits in. Clearly our attention spans are diminishing. However I’ve also seen some 2hr flicks paced so slowly that it makes you want to file your taxes early just to add some excitement to the evening.
So which is Refrain to be? The movie was planned to be anything but a roller coaster, that’s for sure, it’s a drama and a quiet one at that (despite the knife wielding ninjas and shocking lesbian action). But will it work on that level without putting the audience to sleep?
Pleasing the masses says, cut it down and punch it up.
Artistic integrity says, stay true to the vision of a quiet slow-boil drama.
So where does that leave me? At about 100 minutes even I guess.
Well… Maybe 105… If I’m going err, I’d rather it be on the side of integrity.
T