Cut 3 - The Cannes friendly version

Henry is left alone in a cold dusty attic room.

Okay so just when I thought I could cut no more out of the film without destroying the emotional impact of the story, I managed to get Henry Bramble down to an incredible 14 minutes and 40 seconds, leaving 20 seconds to fit all the credits in.

Why so precise I hear you say, well Cannes and many other film festivals won't except short films over 15 minutes. I had a meeting a few weeks back with my producers and agreed to try and get the 18 minute film down to 15. I insisted on being brutal about it, but was still convinced I'd never get close to 15 minutes.

To my surprise much of the process was simply removing time wasted by characters travelling from A to B. Often it worked better as a jump cut instead. There was very little cut out that I missed. Some cuts I worry are a fraction too fast for a fresh audience to keep up with, so I may extend these by a second or two, but I'm going to test screen it to a few kids and close critical film friends and see what the results are.

Whatever happens I think we will have a film that will be short enough for Cannes. The only question is whether the VFX boys up at Dundee can deliver everything in time.

Raygo Rattlegum helps Henry Bramble hunt for a Voydarkatron.