In Hollywood, directors who can get the final editing rights are in the minority.

The larger the investment in the film, the more obvious this situation becomes.

It is the producer who really holds the right to edit the final edit.

This can be said to be the biggest embodiment of Hollywood's producer-centric system, but specifically, the reasons are actually two aspects -

On the one hand, it's too cruel to ask the director, the creator of the film, to do the editing.

Many directors treat their films like their own children, and they can't do it at all.

Let them edit it by themselves, and eighty percent will be reluctant to cut any shots, resulting in the final film being too long.

This is obviously not a no-go.

Therefore, someone needs to edit on their behalf.

On the other hand, producers who always pay attention to the market know the tastes of the current audience better than directors who focus on filmmaking.

Through the final edit, they can adjust the director's self-comparison work to the finished film that best fits the audience's preferences.

— or commodity.

In this regard, because the information between the two sides is not equal, it is difficult for the average director to confront the professional producers who study the market data on a daily basis.

- At least before the release of the film, when the two sides talk to each other, it is often like this.

Of course, we are talking about producers who have really studied enough market data and thoroughly grasped the laws of the market.

As for how many such big producers there are, we can only say that the market is elusive......

In fact, the question of whose opinion is more in line with the market is that many times everyone is actually talking on paper. In the end, what really determines the direction of editing is not who is right and who is wrong, but who has more power.

And the producer, as the representative of the management, is of course more powerful than the director, a high-level worker.

Thereupon......

Counterexamples in this regard are not uncommon, such as the famous "Heavenly Dynasty", which is a typical example of being cut and killed by the producer.

Even, because the producer will cheat his father from time to time, a special movie version has been born-

Director's Cut!

As the name suggests, this is a version edited out with the director's will in mind.

On the surface, this is a kind of compensation for directors who don't have editing rights.

In fact, there is another factor in the production of the director's cut, which is to sell DVDs and videotapes-

For a movie that is a box office success, if fans hear that there is a different director's cut to watch, they are likely to pay more out of curiosity.

As for the films that failed at the box office, the director's cut version, which is different from the premiere version, is a big weapon for the filmmakers to recover their costs.

At this time, it is often the case that the producers cut the news in disregard of the directors – although this is often true – and then create a tragic slate for the directors that their hard work has been wasted.

As a result, the audience often spends money based on the psychology of sympathy for the weak, coupled with the curiosity of "no matter how bad it is, it can be worse than now?".

Then, the filmmaker, who was originally losing money, may unknowingly recover the cost......

Therefore, many times, producers and directors competing for the dominance of the film are actually a pair of double insurance to ensure profitability.

The producer ensures that the director does not go berserk, so that he can make a film that meets the market demand and can make money.

And once the producer misses and the box office fails, the director can throw the pot on the former's head with peace of mind, and then go through a director's cut to see if he can turn the tide and recover the cost.

However, the latter trick is only used by some famous directors, such as Ridley Scott - at least "Heavenly Dynasty" does reduce a lot of losses through this method.

Of course, although this is the case, the directors do not necessarily understand the ghost domain tricks of this management. They simply hope that the film will meet their expectations.

In fact, the director's cut version of most films will be better than the producer-led release version, but that doesn't change the ownership of the final editing rights.

Because this kind of praise is boring-

First of all, the director's cut version is usually released on DVD or videotape compared to the theatrical version.

This version doesn't need to be graded and can be added with some more impactful shots;

This version also doesn't have to worry about the length of time, so there is more time to tell the story clearly.

In addition, when fans watch videos and DVDs, they can skip, fast-forward and pause, and can take a break at any time, so the sensitivity to duration is much lower than in the cinema.

- In the cinema, the audience can only watch the movie in one go, and it is easy to get tired. And, even if they don't get tired, their bladder will remind them.

Secondly, fans who will watch the director's cut version generally have a certain amount of affection for the movies they watch.

This is actually equivalent to screening the audience before watching the movie.

The audience itself is more loyal, and the evaluation it naturally gets is better.

As for the last point, it can really be said to be cheating -

Think about the time when the Director's Cut appeared!

Generally, DVDs or videotapes appear one year after the film is released, and the shortest is three months. During this time, the director can completely summarize the lessons of the released movie and re-edit it.

This kind of edited version standing on the shoulders of predecessors, if it doesn't get a better evaluation, isn't it unreasonable?

Therefore, no matter how well the director's cut version is praised, it can't shake the producer's control over the final editing right.

However, when it came to Charlotte, things were different again-

Whether it is "Fatal Bend" or "Happy Death Day", the nominal final editing rights are not his, but the actual released version is edited according to his will.

There are many reasons for this weird situation –

First of all, the producer, Mr. Westwood, is not very good at editing, so he is more decentralized.

In "Fatal Bend", in the early days, in order to save costs, the crew was not even ready to use the editors.

Later in the game, Mr. Westwood was so busy using the Bianles Valley series of events that he had to open up the editing rights to Charlotte in a hurry.

By the time of "Happy Death Day", Mr. Westwood had more trust in Charlotte.

As for Jodie Foster, another second producer who can dictate the editing, he has to obey him because of the painting incident......

The above situation led to the fact that in the two movies, Charlotte obviously did not have the final editing rights, but she actually controlled the editing.

However, this kind of good thing, at the time of "Guillotine Valley", is likely to cease to exist.

Because according to Charlotte's memories of the original world, the film cost $65 million to make. This is a general big production, if not a super big production.

With this level of investment, will investors trust Charlotte, a director who has only made two films, to let him go and edit?

Even, with him as a director, many investors may be very uneasy.

That's more troublesome.

As a time-traveler, Charlotte asked herself that in terms of editing, he would actually be more rational than the average director.

In particular, he has seen the finished film in the original world, which allows him to stand on the shoulders of "predecessors" when editing, just like those directors' cuts......

Therefore, he felt that he was in charge of the editing and could get better results-

"After all, a director who doesn't want editing rights is by no means a good director!"

Charlotte sighed helplessly.

He came to Jodie Foster this time, in addition to discussing the film itself, but also to get the support of the actress on the issue of final editing rights.

To this end, he also specially prepared a killer feature -

"If you have this, it should be fine!"

Touching the human leather book in her handbag, Charlotte thought to herself.

PS1;"Director's Cut" 2: I just wanted to briefly introduce the editing problem, but I didn't brake the car all of a sudden, I'm sorry, I gave you a chapter of popular science.