So anyway, I've been preparing movie clips to show in a class I teach and playing around in a desktop edit package, choosing just the right moments to illustrate what I want to get across. I've even been putting in those cool little fades in and out as well.
Ain't I the budding little Schoonmaker.
It struck me, though, what a good writing exercise it is.
Ruthlessly choosing those in and out points is about as close as it gets to really experiencing the befamed 'arrive late, leave early' dictum that we all know as screenwriters but seldom put into practice.
When you sit there playing the same clip over and over again and making that decision to leave it later and later for the in point you need, you're actually doing what we all should do as writers: cutting out the extraneous fluff and, er... cutting to the chase.
By now you think you've spotted a glaring internal flaw in my argument (but you are wrong, of course): If I can edit down a scene from a feature film, then why is it that long in the first place?
Well, almost any scene in any feature film or TV drama you look at is already edited down to the bone, and everything in it is crucial to some aspect of the story. But that scene serves various functions in that particular drama.
In one scene you can be revealing something of the main character's inner motivation, setting up a plot point that will pay off much later, and chucking in a crucial bit of backstory.
But if I'm only interested in illustrating to my students the fine art of foreshadowing, then I'm going to home in on the setting up of the plot point that will pay off later and I'm going to cut out the lovely line about inner motivation and the backstory nugget, however crucial they are to the screenplay as a whole.
It's the process of finding what is absolutely necessary for that bit and cutting out the rest that I'm talking about. That's the moment when you experience exactly how it feels to arrive late, leave early.
And believe me, this is something that comes in very handy when you need to lose ten minutes from your overweight TV script.
I'd seriously recommend it. Re-edit a scene from a movie you don't like much and try to find the heart of that scene. It's surprising how much you can cut out whilst still leaving in what matters.
Then go and do the same when you're writing your own scenes.
(This could have been shorter).