Let’s talk 3 versions. There’s a working 3:30 minute core, ready to get sleeky.
The 2011 approach to the final cut is to cut to the core and add back in. Story support – what’s worth adding to deepen, reveal and nuance the story. I want to use the word complicate, but that’s in the sense of going beyond duality, clear cut good and evil, two genders.
Nuance, deepen, enhance, reveal. With the Uncle Joe bookends the core becomes 5:20. I’d like to finalize a 5:30 version. Then there’s the grail, 12 minutes. Finally, we’ve got 26:40 version which could be dramatically influenced by the discoveries of 5:30 and 12:00. 12:00 needs to be confirmed as the ideal festival length, btw. Certainly around or less than 12:00.
So that’s three versions. The shorter versions are subsets of the longer versions, so the same motion graphics can be plugged into all three.
What does this mean for my festival strategy? Should I submit both the shorter versions to the same festivals, what would happen? Why not have two or even three versions tailored to different festivals? Just as 12 is the festival sweet spot and 26:40 is the length of a typical TV episode, is there an optimal short length? Research required.