Blog Post #50 - Overshooting the 2 Minute Mark [Editing and Cutting]

 After compiling all the shots together to create a single opening scene that was paced well, I had overshot the 2 minute cut off by a whopping minute and twenty two seconds! My film was 3:22, meaning I had to cut out a-lot, some good, some not as good. For awhile, I was stumped, I was happy with my film's pacing and story, maybe I could cut out some things, but saying goodbye to over a third of the footage, that was tough. To start cutting, I created some values and priorities to follow; keep as much of the kills as possible, and make sure the film still flows well. If some scenes couldn't rearrange properly, it could mean calling everyone back for reshoots. 

Above is the original runtime for the film, which needed to change, big time. This problem actually fixed parts of my film, like the ending. Originally the film ended with Blair(Romen Basu) walking down the street, and hearing police cars in the distance, which actually made the film feel more like a short film, as the viewer can interpret an ending to the film, soon after the screen goes blank. In the edited cut, I have fixed the ending, to abruptly ending after Possessed Blair kills Bruce(Robert Sokoll) and opens the gate, this new ending makes the fact that this is merely an opening scene more apparent. 

Above is me cutting down the beginning of the film, where I cut out the most. I ended up cutting out the entirety of scene 2, I was hesitant to do this as I wrote scene 2 to flesh out the characters as good living people with active lives, stating the whole party is in celebration of Bruce getting accepted into the USF football team. I even had to cut out the Evil Dead 2 reference, I was keen on getting in the final project. The thought process that changed my mind on keeping these scenes (besides really needing to cut down) was that these characters, will not be important in the bulk of the actual film(besides Sam(Matthew Stramiello, who's character would get fleshed out in the bulk of the film).

After cutting the ending and all of scene 2, I still had 40 seconds that needed to be cut back. So I went through the film multiple times, and shortened shots, cut un-needed shots, and did this over and over until I reached the 2 minute mark. I successfully avoided cutting a-lot of the kills out, and I kept the pacing in tact, speeding it up a bit, but still working successfully as an opening scene, and achieving the same effect I intended originally.