We just put together a trailer for Breakups With Guns in the “media”:?s=media section. Check it out!

My wife (Bich) and I drove down to meet Dakota and his wife (Tracie) at their home yesterday. We talked a lot of business. The biggest news is that he and Tracie cut Breakups down from 30 minutes to 10. Unfortunately, the original cut wasn’t really working. A little too slow, especially in the beginning.

As Dakota was both the writer and director for Breakups With Guns, I have to hand it to him — it’s tough to cut your work. Along with the things that didn’t work, there were some good shots/scenes/lines that also had to be cut. When you put that much time into something, it’s hard to not keep everything. But if cutting something out makes the movie more watchable, then you have to do it. I know it hurt, but by the end of it all they knew they made that movie 10 times better.

That’s why it is *so important* to be open to feedback on your work. You know that uncomfortable experience: Somebody shows you something they’ve done, you can see a number of problems with it, but they think it’s just fine the way it is and brush off your suggestions. If you want to be a good filmmaker, you *can’t* be that person. You have to listen to criticism, weigh the good and the bad, and face the harsh reality that maybe what you’ve poured your heart and soul into over the last several hours/months/years still needs work. It becomes so personal that it’s hard to step away and become objective.

How else do you think so much dreck makes it into video stores? When you’re watching the credits and you think, “How could so many people make something so bad?” I’ll tell you why. Either (a) they were all so busy making the movie that they couldn’t step out and be objective, or (b) they had already sunk so much money into it that they couldn’t afford to trash it all.

So kudos to Dakota: If you can get it perfect the first time, you’re one of the few.