Johnny Depp, based on his performance in the television crime drama 21 Jump Street, acted in Oliver Stone’s anti-war movie Platoon. This included two major dialog scenes with William Defoe. Those sections of the film, however, fell to the cutting room floor, victim of Oliver Stones’ ruthless editing.
This is not unusual.
Directors cut scenes for many reasons: a subplot doesn’t push the story forward, a scene disrupts pacing, or the director has entirely too much material (see Malick’s Thin Red Line).
Deleted scenes aren’t thrown out. Instead, they are labeled and stored for later use.
Writer, you, too, have deleted scenes. Content that hits the cutting room floor. Don’t give up on it. Repurpose it.
- Fish through cut material when looking for new ideas.
- Keep a series alive with related chunks from the past.
- Resurrect once two-bit content when the topic finally becomes hot (for whatever reason).
And where do you find your cut material?
- Look through your revision files on WordPress (section just below your text editor).
- Label Word documents different versions as you rewrite.
- Dig through old emails to find older versions of your documents you sent to a friend or editor.
Who knows, you might find an idea you once thought lost.
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Image source: Valley Drive In Theater
Ahh … comments.
Just wanted to say that you’re doing a hell of a job priming the pump for tomorrow’s episode of The Lede. A million thank yous.