03/09/2026
I’ve worked on several short films this year where the final run time is around 3 minutes, but the interviews that I have shot run well over an hour, usually with multiple speakers.
The challenge is to find the story in that series of longer conversations and edit it into a narrative that’s clear, interesting, emotionally engaging and memorable. That’s what takes a lot of the time.
I’m increasingly aware that people’s time is valuable, we’re all very easily distracted, there’s a great deal of competition out there for everyone’s eyes, ears and brains. Winning your attention and keeping it for three minutes is no mean feat! So my edits are extremely focussed on a particular message. They have to be.
But what about all of the bits that aren’t used? There are many things that are said during an interview that are fascinating and worth hearing, but they don’t have a space to be used in my edit. Isn’t it a shame that those parts will never be heard?
So here’s what my solution is. The longer interviews, tidied up and given a short intro and outro can be repurposed as a longer form podcast. There’s space on a podcast for a more conversational approach, and an answer that on its own may take a minute or two - and which can’t be used in its full form in my edit, can be heard along with the rest of the conversations. It’s good to have the time and space to hear longer answers and a podcast is the place do this.
Another way of using some of those parts that don’t make the main edit - along with many that do - is to create a series of social media shorts. 15 to 30 seconds is often all you need to make a valuable point that people have time to engage with. Less is more!
That full interview can often yield up to 15 or 20 very interesting shorts that can either be used as an end in themselves, as part of a LinkedIn post or on Instagram or TikTok, or to signpost to the longer edit or podcast.
This way there’s the potential to maximise the outputs from our filming session and, rather than a single short film used once, you could easily have several weeks of content that tell a much fuller story about your business, organisation, event or service.
This can of course work the other way round. Shoot with the intention of a long form podcast as your main product, and all of the other outputs are a very welcome byproduct.
Waste not, want not!
