The Cutting Room Floor

Over the past month I’ve had discussions with some extremely talented actors to let them know that their footage will not be included in the NEW YORK LATELY theatrical cut. It was the hardest thing to do. It was my first time doing it, and I don’t think it’ll ever get any easier.

Having to lose scenes in the film was hard as I really loved them, but in order to do what was best for the film’s pacing, things had to go. Most of the subplots and characters not central to the story — or sometimes poorly developed by me — were deleted.

Making the phone calls wasn’t fun, but it was really nice to hear the actors tell me that they understood. Of course, they didn’t like to hear the news, but they understood. I doubt it ever sugar coats the situation when I tell them that KEVIN COSTNER was cut out of THE BIG CHILL, but then LAWRENCE KASDAN paid him back by casting him in SILVERADO (Cosnter’s break out film).

The learning lesson from the experience has taught me to make sure that everything must be strong and ready at the script stage. There were little things in the script that I thought would make easy sense that didn’t translate well to screen — and the deleted scenes suffered from that. The good thing is that I’ve learned from this experience, so ideally I don’t fall into the same trappings again.

Although there will always be scenes that will be deleted from rough cuts, at least I don’t believe it will be for the same reasons at this time around. But now I think I’ve just jinxed myself.