Notes from the Director's Pass

The first draft asks:

What is the story?

The Director's Pass asks another question:

What does the audience actually need?

The difference is enormous.

A scene I once fought to preserve may suddenly seem unnecessary. An explanation may be stealing power from an image. A line I love may be preventing a silence from doing its work.

Directing sometimes means adding.

More often than I expected, it means having the confidence to remove.

The film becomes clearer when I stop fixing what already belongs to it.