The Art of the Edit - Part 1

[Author's note: if you received this via email, you'll need to click the link and go to the website in order to see the video portion.]

As a screenwriter, I'd love to think that I have the most impact on a movie - after all, if I didn't write it, it wouldn't exist.  Right?

The auteur theory presents the director as the creator of the movie.

In reality, the finished movie that you watch is made in the editing process.  And the final product can be far from what was written and what was shot.  In my first feature, Surviving Family, we split a major scene into 2 separate pieces to pick up the pace and bring a major character back on screen sooner.  And in my 2nd, Detours, we re-arranged the order of many scenes to create a better story arc.

This post looks at the changes to Surviving Family; I'll look at the Detours changes next time.

The pivotal scene in Surviving Family comes roughly half way through the movie:  the amazing Phyllis Somerville as Aunt Mary Giaccone explains to her niece Terry, played by the wonderful Sarah Wilson, why Terry's mother killed herself.  It's an amazing and emotional scene, and many viewers have cited it as their favorite.  But it's long, intense, and talky.  Here's an excerpt:

In the original edit of the movie, that scene was followed by an equally good and intense scene between Terry and her ex-boyfriend, played by the terrific JD Williams, best known for his work in The Wire.  Here's a brief clip from that scene:

But when we put the 2 scenes back-to-back, the sequence was (a) too long and talky and (b) left our wonderful leading man Billy Magnussen off screen for too long.

Director Laura Thies was the editor as well.  After feedback from test viewers, Laura watched the 2 sequences many times. "What happened?" is said in each scene. She inserted a short scene to split the 2 long ones, which also brought Billy back into the sequence.

Here's the piece that she used as a bridge:

It worked beautifully.  But if you want to see exactly how, you'll have to rent the movie for yourself - it's on Amazon Prime (free for members, starts at $2.99 for non-members) and on iTunes.

To be continued...

Mental Illness in a Movie - It Ain't Easy

I knew when I started to write Surviving Family that I wanted to incorporate the subject of mental illness.  It's something that affects many families including my own (see stats from the National Institute of Mental Health HERE).  Treatment has improved markedly in recent years, but the issue still struggles to emerge from the shadows.  It took numerous re-writes to come up with something that was reasonably accurate (keeping in mind that it's fiction) while still being (I think!) entertaining.

A wonderful aspect of the millenial generation is that they are far more upfront, accepting, and honest about many things that were taboo in the past - this has been the subject of much discussion lately regarding their overwhelming acceptance of the GLBTQ communities.  But it's true with regard to mental illness as well - I've seen it within my own family.  That's something I wanted to highlight:  young people are often far more comfortable acknowledging and dealing with mental health issues than their parents and grandparents are. 

In the clip below, teenager Lily Malone (played by the terrific Katherine C. Hughes) tells her aunt (Sarah Wilson) about her diagnosis while Lily's mother (Tara Westwood) squirms uncomfortably.   Joining in them in this scene are Billy Magnussen as Terry's fiance, Bill Sage as Jean and Terry's dad,  P.J. Sosko as Terry's step-father, and Sophia Parra as Helen.