Why You Should Watch Deleted Scenes

As a service to the young filmmakers who submit films to the YoungCuts Film Festival, we will be featuring weekly filmmaking tips from YoungCuts Alumni, Partners and Friends.

Wouldn't it be nice to learn lessons in filmmaking from your favourite directors? Well, you might have those lessons sitting on your DVD shelf and not even know it. If you have a good selection of DVDs, you probably have some titles that include as a special feature - Deleted Scenes, frequently with Director's Commentary explaining why the scenes were cut. 

When You are Editing, You Have to be Ruthless

The first important lesson that you will learn from watching these deleted scenes and listening to the reasons why they were cut is that when you are editing, you have to be ruthless. Almost always, the deleted scenes have a great performance or great writing or a great set or it may be a great scene, but if the film is better without the scene, no matter how good it is, you have to cut it. 

The reasons directors cut scenes from their feature films are the same reasons that you may need to cut scenes from your short film:

Film Length Your film is too long. Accept that now. It may be too long by thirty seconds or too long by ten minutes, but guaranteed it is too long.

Your Film is Too Long

Norman McLaren, the Oscar Winning Animator at the National Film Board once gave a screening of his award-winning film Pas-de-Deux to NFB employees on the 10th Anniversary of his short film winning the BAFTA award for Best Animated Film. After the screening, he complained that the film was still too long, "I could cut another minute out..." 

If you can cut an entire scene out of your film or if you can trim the start or end of a scene and not lose any information or emotional content, you probably need to. 

Pas de deux by Norman McLaren, National Film Board of Canada

Duplicated information You never want to tell your audience the same information twice. If there are two different ways to tell that information, you always want to pick the way that is the most natural and preferably the shortest.

Never Tell Your Audience the Same Information More Than Once

Pacing You don't want to have two slow scenes back-to-back or rush your audience in two helter-skelter scenes that follow each other. 

Duplicated Emotional Beats You don't want to hit the same emotional beat in two back-to-back scenes.

But don't listen to me, watch the films of your favourite directors and listen to them tell you in their own words why they had to cut their favourite scenes out of their films, and learn to be ruthless just like them. Your short films will be better for it! (And shorter!)

Michael Ryan is the Festival Director for the YoungCuts Film Festival. He watches over a thousand short films every year. Follow Michael on Twitter: @Llakor

Agree with Michael? Disagree? Have your own filmmaker tips, best practices or mistakes to avoid that you would like to share? Get in touch! E-Mail the YoungCuts Film Festival Director, Michael Ryan: Mike@YoungCuts.com