Ari Merkin

Twenty-seven pages of screenplay were cut just a week before “American Beauty” was set to leave the editing room in its final cut dress. Pages of dialogue and action lines, all thrown out the window, jumping out of the frame, abandoned on the floor. It was Sam Mendes, the director, who decided on that relentless cut. Those pages were destined to build the upfront part of the story and wrap the ending in a freshly made narrative bow. So the beginning and the end of the story found their way to the trash before seeing the light. “American Beauty” was initially meant to begin with Ricky and Jane, the teenage couple, in a courtroom accused of a murder they never committed. Then, one action line at a time, they would find themselves in jail, Ricky staring at the wall and pacing the perimeter of his own fear. However, if this was the direction the story took, the movie would have had a totally different footprint. It would have been a crime drama, not a drama with heart. There wouldn’t have been any glimpse of hope, redemption, or asymmetry in the thinking. Everything would have been perfectly aligned with the crime drama stories that Hollywood had generated until that point. This realization came to Sam only seven days before the completion of the movie, in the rubbery darkness of an editing room. That's where he made the decision to cut the 27 pages. When you look at the original script, the one that contains the missing pages, you're prone to believe that everything is there to build a good, solid foundation. Instead, the attempt to subtract is what added a heartbeat. A cut of that sort is never easy. The bravery that self-editing requires is something that infiltrates the ego. A voice in your head comes on top of your guts and whispers into the valley of your brain that everything you are making is marvelous. There's no need to trash anything—27 pages that costed you days of work. Yet, if you give that voice a chance, you weaken your perspective and lock yourself in a safe space. Instead, find that cut that allows you to tell a story in a way that hasn’t been told before. Find that slash on the flesh of your narrative that is ready to bleed for you. If there’s any bravery in what we do, if it can even be called bravery, it's the act of throwing away what we wrote, what we obsessed over while creating, and leaving it all behind. That’s the bravery of those who create. That’s what bleeding for your craft truly means. #writinglife #screenplay #writer #film #copywriter #creativity

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ICYMI: There was a dragon atop the Empire State Building! And, no this was not an #AI trick... The 270-foot dragon encircling the top was an idea brainstormed, developed, and strategically placed #IRL by a marketing team from Warner Bros., Max. The dragon took between 10 and 12 hours to install over the span of several days and was one of the highest-profile marketing stunts yet to promote the second season of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones spin-off series that has seen its Season 2 audience steadily increase since the first episode aired on June 16, which was Max’s best streaming day ever. The season’s fourth episode attracted 8.1 million viewers on linear and streaming, a season-high. I'm not into Game of Thrones (maybe I should start watching!), but the sheer effort of the creative minds who pulled this off is amazing. 🤩 Quick facts: 🐉 It took about six to eight months from the time the idea was pitched to the dragon being installed 🐉 The overall marketing campaign for House of the Dragon Season 2 was 18 months in the making So, even if you don't have a $100 million promotional budget to launch your next big thing, remember a great idea is always worth the time and effort. #truestory Put in the time and breathe some fire into your ideas, my friends. 🔥 #MidWeekMotivation #CreativeMindsRule #LaunchYourDragon

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All About the Prompts (cue Megan Trainor's "All About That Bass") Welcome to the Prompt Club at Far From Timid! We've integrated AI into every aspect of the creative process—briefs, brand voice, and storyboarding. The secret to boosting productivity with AI? Mastering the art of prompting. We all need to be expert prompt engineers. To sharpen our team's AI skills, I came up with an idea: Dive into screenplays. Learn from the best visual storytellers like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Aaron Sorkin, and Quentin Tarantino. In screenplays, you'll discover how to describe set design, facial expressions, and timing with precision. For our first Prompt Club session, we're dissecting "Pulp Fiction" by Quentin Tarantino. #process #becomelegendary #befarfromtimid #creativeagency #brandagency #prompt #ai #screenplay #engineer #writing #visualexpression #screenwriting #pulpfiction

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NARRATIVE MOTION is the visual podcast that explores all things related to video production, video marketing, and strategy. IN THIS EPISODE: "ON THE RUNWAY: What The Fashion Industry Can Teach Video Marketing."

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