THE BOX - ReEdit

I spent the last two days doing something I've been putting off for about a year... re-editing THE BOX.

At the time when it was completed, I put it together the way I intended, but I felt it was too long. I was too close to the project to view it objectively, so I called it a wrap and moved on.

My mindset with the re-edit was to cut absolutely everything that wasn't 100% critical to the story. No fluff. No excessive character development beyond what is required for the story to move forward. Granted, that was my goal the first time, but my perception of the definition of "required" has changed the farther I got away from the film.

My goal was to cut it down by 30 minutes... I got almost half way there. I was able to remove over 12 minutes from the film, mostly from the first half of the film and reshuffled some scenes around to shorten the time it takes the info to get relayed and for better impact of the character arcs.

I will say that this re-edited mix moves much faster and improves it quite a bit. During the entire process I kept saying to myself "What was I thinking!" I wish I would have made these decisions on the first edit, but, like I said, I was too close to the project to see it objectively.

Lesson learned.

There are things that I wish I could have done differently, but I limited myself to only investing time in a re-edit, not a reshoot or a recreation... that time will be invested in other projects.

The other thing I realized during the process was that THE BOX was shot almost four years ago! I can't believe that! My daughter, in the film, was nine when we shot it (10 when it was released) and she's about to turn 13 in a few weeks.

What the hell have I been doing?

Sure, during the past four years I threw together the short THE BUSINESS TRIP in 14 straight hours of shooting (and it shows), built a small movie room in my house and I've written a couple of scripts, but I desperately need to get back behind the camera... I'm so happy there :)

Anyway, the re-edit was a good challenge, an excellent exercise and far less painful than I thought. I wish I would have done it years ago.