Great films are made in the editing room, where the director sits with an editor and decides what the audience will never see. At Furlough Film Studio the editing room is also the cupboard, which makes decisions faster and the lighting worse. Here are seven scenes that did not make the cut.
Scene one: The long stare at the wall
In this scene, our lead looks at a wall for eleven minutes. It was cut because the wall gave a better performance than the actor. The wall has asked for a credit.
Scene two: The chase
A chase sequence in which a cat pursues a moth across the sofa. It was cut because the moth was the better athlete, and because the cat gave up after four seconds and sat down for what felt like the rest of the film.
Scene three: The confrontation
Two cats square up in the hallway, tails fluffed, eyes narrowed. After a tense minute they both walk away in opposite directions. It was cut because it was too realistic.
Scene four: The dream sequence
A sequence in which our lead dreams of flying over a vast landscape of cushions. It was cut because the dream was longer than the film.
Scene five: The monologue
Orson wrote a three page monologue about the nature of comfort. It was cut when the only actor available fell asleep on the third line.
Scene six: The kiss
A romantic moment between two cats ended in a fight over a blanket. It was cut because it was too romantic.
Scene seven: The credits
The original credits ran for forty minutes and listed every cat who had ever walked past the set. They were cut for time, and because Biscuit noticed that his name was misspelled.
What remains
After all the cuts, the film runs to three hours and forty minutes. We think it is still too long. We think it is also too short. The editing room cat, a grey tabby named Splice, has declared the film “finished for now.”
Lessons
Editing teaches us that the most important thing is not what you include but what you leave out. In our case, this was nearly everything, and the result is a masterpiece of absence.
Furlough Film Studio is a fictional company, and none of these scenes were filmed, although we would have loved to see them.