Impact50 and the inevitable recut for film festivals…
4 July 2022 · 1 min read
As we enter the festival stages for Impact50, we need to get real. The film is too long and in my view, most festivals will reject it on running time alone. I asked a couple of friendly festival programmers for some feedback and here it is (edited to make it flow).
I watched the movie and liked it overall. Obviously some stories work better than others and there are some clear editing options because it does overstay its welcome.
The film as it stands needs an edit. Ideally, to make it palatable to audiences the length should be circa 102 mins max, as opposed to 142 mins as it currently stands. It is too unwieldy at its current length for festival and/or regular audiences. Essentially the fat needs to be trimmed.
Some elements are certainly stronger and more memorable, with others perhaps weaker in content, so, if being brutal the weaker pieces could potentially come out entirely – with perhaps this longer cut made available in some form down the line (online).
Anyone – generally – faced with the running time as it currently stands – from programmer to general audiences, they would feel daunted by the current length and put off from screening it or even watching it in its entirety.
So I am going to do an edit. It’s quite a challenge as its editing a completed film with music, so cuts COULD jump badly. Let’s see if I can hit that 102 minute mark.
Chris Jones
www.Impact50film.com
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
