Poll Closed

Since the 3rd cut won't be ready for another week and the trailer after that, I thought I'd go into the recently closed poll.

It seems that people know what they're talking about when it comes to movies. The poll has closed and writing takes the honors of first place. Directing made a non-surprising second place and marketing and editing tied for fourth. I think someone felt sorry for editing and voted for it as it had remained unclicked for many weeks.

If anyone wants to see how strong editing can play into a movie watch any of the movies on MST3K(Mystery Science Theatre 3000, for those know in the know) and you'll see how much a role editing can play. Establishing shots that last almost an entire minute. "We get it! They're in a hospital!"

Directing, much like an editing, is important as it can make a bad movie into a decent movie. Though from what I've been told, directing can also be very easy. If you have a great script and cast the right actors. It can pretty much take care of itself. There's an old addage that "90% of directing is casting".

If it isn't a great story that of course it won't be a good movie. Why do you think almost all movies are really just great stories that have already been told on another medium. Look up any movie and it'll most likely be based off of a comic book, novel, or stage play. A great story that's underwhelming in all other aspects is passable. A bad story no matter how great the directing, sound, and visuals is about the same as Dane Cook doing stand up. A strong performer with lots of energy and passion with no material. Would you want to hear a bad story? Then why watch a bad story? Probably a reason there's never been a great movie based off of a video game.

Last is marketing. If you don't think marketing is important then where were you when the Blair Witch Phenomenom was going on? Could you imagine a world without film festivals? People would be travelling around with projectors on the back of their pick up trucks trying to get their word around. Movies spend 2-3 times their budgets on marketing. Hmmm... movie industry or marketing industry?

The only movies I've known to get around by word of mouth are Boondock Saints and Equilibrium. That's not a lot of movies.

So that's it. Which pretty much established what we already knew. I'll set up a new poll soon and see what comes of that.

3rd Edit

As of right now I'm going over and over every scene in the entire movie to make sure that this is the best possible edit. I'll probably do a 4th and a 5th edit as well, but I'm trying to get as much done with this edit as I can. It's just like a rewrite, except you can only cut and paste.

The last edit fixed a lot of big things that were easily spotted. This edit is more about pacing, scene dynamics, and all the other little things.

I'm really cracking down on all the scenes. Anything a scene can do without is gone. Who cares if it was clever or well shot if it drags the pacing down? My goal is to make the entire movie move at a pace that minimizes the amount of times you check your cell phone to see what time it is.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if you should keep something or lose it. Then I remember Robert Deniro from 'Ronin'. "Whenever there is any doubt...there is no doubt."