Every brand film we've ever trimmed got better. Not one got worse. That's the whole argument, but marketing likes evidence, so here's the rest.
A film has one job: make someone feel something specific about you before they look at their phone. Feelings are fast. Explanations are slow. Most brand films are 20% feeling and 80% explanation, which is exactly backwards.
What we cut first
The intro. Yours too. The drone establishing shot of the building, the logo animation, the chairman walking with purpose — the audience knows what a company is. Start at the good part. If you're not sure where the good part is, it's wherever you were saving for the end.
Second: anything the picture already says. If the frame shows a welder at height at sunrise, the voiceover doesn't need to say 'our people work around the clock at great heights.' We can see them. Trust the frame — that's what you paid for.
Start at the good part. The audience will forgive almost anything except being warmed up.
The boardroom cut vs. the audience cut
Here's the uncomfortable one: the sections that die first in the edit are usually the ones added in review. Every stakeholder addition is rational alone and fatal together. Our rule of thumb — one film, one feeling, one call to action. Everything else is a second film. We're happy to make the second film. That's not a joke; it's cheaper than ruining the first one.
How long should it be, then? As long as it stays interesting, and not one second more. In practice: 60–90 seconds for brand, 30 for product, under 20 for social. If your story genuinely needs six minutes, it's a documentary — and documentaries follow different rules, which we'll get into another day.
