It's official: the final cut of Loss For Words is finished at 112 minutes.
There are two schools of thought in Hollywood. The first is to focus on the audience; make the movies people will pay money to see. When done wrong, it leads to shoddy, lowest-common-denominator comedies, lot's of explosions, and an obsession with 3D.
The other is to focus on the art. Let the writers and directors and actors just do their thing. When done wrong, you get Funny People, which fell flat, mostly because Judd Apatow refused to cut anything.
Good movies don't follow their research or their visions off a cliff.
The Movie We Made
A lot of the time in post production, we talk about the "movie we wanted to make." The way the script was written, the way the ideas were envisioned, the reasons we did what we did.
But "the movie we made" is always a little bit different than that. Sometimes jokes that worked great on paper just don't work on screen. Sometimes actors evolve their roles into stronger characters. In Salad Daze, Scott Bates's interpretation of Michael Kaufman was so distinct that we wound up rewriting the climax of the movie at the last minute in order to fit the new and improved character that he'd created over the course of the movie.
So we know there are things that we planned on which, when we look at the movie we made, just don't work, or don't fit, or aren't necessary. The problem is, we've been obsessing over this project for over a year: we have no idea what they are.
A Second Opinion
We came up we a list of people. The idea was to capture a cross-section, not demographically, but based on what they like. We wanted connoisseurs of cinema, with their knowledge of character and composition. We wanted people who may not care who the directors are, but they've seen all the best picture nominees. We wanted people who like movies, but would really rather be on Facebook.
We showed them the rough cut without telling them anything about each other, or what we might ask about, or what other feedback we had.
The reason is this: everyone has their opinions - one viewer hated that we use a typewriter - and that's all good to know. Every once in a while someone would find a line or two that we'd look at and realize we should toss it.
Some of the feedback was specific to different types of people. There's a scene we had that half the people love, half can't stand, and by the last round of feedback we could predict whether someone would like it.
But the most interesting feedback was consistent across the board. There was a scene that Randy and I really just weren't happy with, but were afraid to cut, because we thought it would cause confusion not to have it. Almost everyone in our screening group told us to get rid of it.
The Chopping Block
As we wrapped up the process, we started hearing the same things over and over. Randy and I met in Columbia to pass through the movie one last time, reviewing our notes, and deciding what we wanted to cut, change, or revise.
To do this, we used a series of criteria:
- Does it work?
- Does the scene need it?
- Is it integral to the movie overall?
- Did we stand out in the cold for it?
And yes, standing out in the cold is a very important matter. There's a scene we shot where the fluid in our camera's display started slowing down because it was so cold.
We cut about 7 minutes of material in little bits and pieces, and ultimately, the movie is much better for it. We made the characters stronger, the flow smoother, and help dive into the story faster than we do in the rough cut.
We even managed to save the establishing shot that Randy climbed a tree in order to take.
But that's another story.
