Speaker 1: Great filmmakers hate when there's shoe leather in a scene. What is shoe leather? Well, to explain that, first we're going to need to zoom out and talk a bit about a bigger filmmaking topic, pacing. Now, have you ever noticed that when somebody's telling a story, they're talking real fast at first, and they get to a really dramatic part. They start slowing it down, getting a little quieter. And then, bam, they pick it back up again and they get to the end. Did you notice how that change in pacing affected how you listened to the story? Kind of made you lean in, right? Made you feel like this was maybe the most important part of the story. Well, in a nutshell, that's how pacing works in film, too. Pacing a film is about feeling the rhythm of the story, and the best way to do that is to figure out where your audience is so you know when to speed up or slow down the narrative in order to keep them engaged. Weak pacing ruins so many films from beginner filmmakers, and in my experience, both as an independent filmmaker and as a freelance editor, no matter how great your technical skills are, knowing how to pace a film is one of the biggest differentiating factors between pro-writers, pro-directors, pro-editors, and the amateurs. And that's why storytelling skills are so much more powerful for filmmakers than technical skills. And that's why I made this channel. So let's dig in and see how you can improve the pacing in your own films immediately by eliminating shoe leather. Now, if you want the cheat code to good pacing, let's hear it from the master himself, Paul Thomas Anderson. PTA says, This really is the first commandment of good pacing, and we'll go into some exceptions later, but generally, just keeping your film one step ahead of the audience is the key to keeping them engaged. And most novice filmmakers don't accomplish this because they're pacing their films too slow. And there's a few reasons why they're doing that. between two potentially well-paced scenes that the audience doesn't want or need, thereby ruining any good pacing they might have had going for them. So let's look at a great example of controlling pacing in a film from one of my favorites, Michael Mann's heist classic, Heat. Now, in Heat, we've got this scene with Pacino and De Niro. It's a cat-and-mouse game throughout the whole film. But finally, in this part, he pulls them over. They have a quick little chat by the road. You think it might turn into violence, but it doesn't. Pacino invites them out for a coffee. De Niro accepts. And then, boom, we're already just seated at the diner. We skip all the arriving, the parking, the small talk, because the filmmaker wants to stay one step ahead of the audience, and all of that stuff is inconsequential to the story. Filmmakers trying to give the audience exactly what they want to see, but just before they even have time to start thinking about what this cafe scene might entail. Now, you might say, Hey, Ken, why didn't they just start the scene with Pacino pulling him over? Why even show this montage of him racing through traffic to get to De Niro? You could have just gone straight from this helicopter shot...

Speaker 2: You running a revolving tail? Yeah, I got two units in front, three behind. Okay, have one of them pick me up at the Vermont on-ramp.

Speaker 1: ...to this shot of De Niro getting pulled over, and saved a whole minute, and stayed one step ahead of the audience, like you were saying. Well, this fairly long tension-building and mood-setting sequence of Pacino chasing De Niro through the freeway actually worked really well, and it earns its place in the film, even though it is totally unnecessary for the plot of the film to work. And the reason is, one, it's kind of an action scene, and it's breaking up some more low-key dialogue scenes that surround it. Again, this is about knowing where your audience is, and how they're feeling. That's where this comes into play, right? But more importantly, the reason this scene earns its place in the film is that this particular moment in the film is a nut hand for the filmmaker. Now, what do I mean by a nut hand? Well, I don't mean what you think I mean. Tell you that. In poker, when you have the nuts, that means you've drawn the strongest possible hand of cards, and you can't lose. In this part of Heat, the audience has been waiting for these two larger-than-life characters to come face-to-face for the entire film. And now, finally, Pacino's closing in on De Niro, and there's so much at stake, and we, the audience, know that anything can happen. The whole film has been leading up to this moment, and the audience's anticipation here should be at a peak. And to continue my poker analogy, when you, the storyteller, have the nuts like that, you need to go all in. You need to make a meal out of that moment, like man does here, and tease the audience with the anticipation of what's going to happen. And this is one time where the audience will love you for slowing down the pace of the narrative and letting things play out longer than usual. That's why in many films, during the climax, they slow down the pace so the audience can savor that nut that they worked so hard for. Now, without the nuts, that anticipation that's been built up from earlier in the film, even though this freeway chase sequence itself is shot and edited to be super fast-paced and frenetic, the extra runtime of the driving sequence would still drag down the pacing. No scene lives in a vacuum, right? You have to zoom out and look at the film structurally. If a fast-paced scene doesn't belong in a film at all, then it doesn't matter how fast-paced it is. It's still slowing down the pace of the film as a whole, and it's hurting the narrative. That's why after these two characters exchange a few words on the street without killing each other, we must skip ahead straight to the diner. We can't make the audience sit through another driving scene like we just saw. The filmmaker has already played that nut hand. Now he's got to pick up the pace again. And just a disclaimer here, don't go around film sets saying that you got a nut hand, okay? That's not a film term, and out of context, on a film set in 2023, you might give the wrong impression. Depends on what kind of film you're making, though. Might need to say it.

Speaker 2: Not now.

Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you again, Jack. But instead of going around saying nut hand, let's go back to a term that you can use, one that's incredibly helpful for cutting the dead weight out of your film. That's right, I'm talking about... I'm talking about shoe leather. Now, shoe leather is... See, I got the nuts in this video right now. Shoe leather is the mundane things that happen in reality but are deemed too boring for a film because they would only slow down the drama and the entertainment value of the story. For example, if we had seen De Niro valet his car, talk to the hostess, get seated at this diner, all that stuff is kind of boring. It's what has to happen in real life, but it doesn't make the film more fun to watch, does it? So we should try to find a way to eliminate it from the film entirely, right? So the writers, the directors, the editors, they have to be cutthroat about eliminating this shoe leather from their films. And by the way, where does the term shoe leather come from? Well, I actually made a whole Patreon video about shoe leather, so let's just watch some of that. Shoe leather is basically all of the in-between stuff that you don't really need. And I think the term comes from when you see a character walk into a building to get to somebody and talk to them. That in-between phase from opening the door, walking across the building, and then reaching the person, you're just hearing the sound of their shoe leather on the floor. I think that's where it comes from. I don't really know, but that is the idea. Why are you showing them enter the building and walk across the room to get to this person? Wouldn't it be better to just start the scene with them talking to the person? And even more cutthroat, if you're editing this thing, start it with the relevant part of the conversation. Sometimes it's better to just stay ahead of the viewer by jumping to the next beat in the story, you know, the next relevant thing that we're supposed to be seeing. We don't want to see irrelevant material in a film, ever. Another classic example of getting rid of the shoe leather is, you know, they make fun of this all the time, but characters in movies and TV shows rarely say hello when they pick up the phone. They rarely say goodbye.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be at practice. Well, I guess that's all you can do. Yeah, as soon as you can.

Speaker 1: The reason for that is it's just more shoe leather. You know the hello, you know the goodbye. There's a bit of a suspension of disbelief that we don't really need our characters and shows to be doing that because it's a waste of time. Now, there are times when it's a little ridiculous that somebody doesn't say goodbye. And even I'm like, you know, you just got to hang up on them like that. But if you're writing it well, then you can get away with it. And often it's better to not even show them pick up the phone and put the phone down. You just start the thing after they've already picked up the phone, once they've gotten to the relevant part of the conversation, you know. So it's like scene of me working at the computer. The phone rings. I pick it up. Hello. Oh, hey, baby. What's up? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, I think I'll be out of here in 20 minutes. Okay. Yeah, I'll pick up the groceries too. Okay. I love you. Okay. Yes. Okay, bye. And I go back to work. What a horrible scene, right? Versus if you had showed me the previous scene and then you cut to this scene and you see me working and I'm like, yeah, I should be off in 20 minutes. Okay. Yeah, I love you too. And then you cut away and then I'm in the next part. I'm on the way to the grocery store already. You didn't need to see all the rest of that conversation, right? That's being efficient with your storytelling. Something to keep in mind when you're writing your stories, when you're shooting them, and when you're editing. So you have to be creative about how you eliminate shoe leather without making things like those shortened phone calls feel unbelievable and take the viewer out of the film like we've seen so many times. But if you succeed, it keeps the pace of your film up and it keeps only the fun and entertaining parts of the world that you're creating on screen. Having someone else edit your film can really help with this problem. There'll be more cutthroat because they're not in love with the footage like you are. So if you have somebody walking across the room, a cool crane shot that you balled out on budget-wise, but it's not adding anything to the story, a good editor will try to murder that little darling baby shot of yours and convince you to leave it on the cutting room floor. So let's see this in action. I'm going to go shoot a little short film in my house. I'm going to show you the version that's poorly paced and another version where I've cut out the shoe leather that's dragging down the pacing so you can see what a dramatic impact good pacing has on the entertainment value of a film. I'm going to get an insert of the TV remote just to cover myself in the edit because I did not shot this. I'm just figuring it out as I go. It's showing me going over to get some coffee. This is the type of thing that is shoe leather that we don't really need to see, but we're going to shoot it anyway. My staggeringly beautiful girlfriend, Toni, is shooting some behind-the-scenes and pulling focus for me here using the SmallRig MagicFizz wireless follow focus, which I've finally gotten the hang of and actually love using now. You're going to rack from the couch to the Folgers jug. Boom. Just like that. To make this a little more fun, I've cut a hole in the Folgers can here and we're going to stick my iPhone in it and we're going to have a little POV shot from inside. I just don't want my phone to drop on my face when I'm doing it, so I'm just going to kind of do that. Do that. Nice. You can tell me when you're rolling.

Speaker 3: I think it's better to not and to just, like, catch you. Yeah, I think those are the best. I've been rolling.

Speaker 1: Can you start a new one?

Speaker 3: Blooper number two.

Speaker 1: YouTube, I'm not going to hit her. So if we go to Filmic Pro here and choose 4K 10-bit and go to the color and set it to Log B3 instead of just regular Rec. 709, then we're going to be able to convert this perfectly using Cinematch to our Panasonic footage. While I set up the shot, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Cinematch, who so kindly sponsored this video. If you're like me, then often you need to combine footage from multiple cameras in the same project, but most of us don't have two or three of the exact same camera. Or maybe we want to use the strengths of a different camera for certain shots. For example, small size of my iPhone camera here for this POV shot from inside a coffee container. Cinematch is a plugin that works with some of your favorite editing programs like Premiere, Resolve, and Final Cut. And it's just an effect you drop on the clip. You tell it what camera you're using, what camera you're trying to match it to. They've analyzed the sensors for all the most popular cameras, and it will match any log footage to any other log footage perfectly. And you can even apply your Rec. 709 transformation for your camera in the effect. And to show you it in action, I recreated the shot with my GH5S in this super janky setup. And look at this. This is V-Log on the GH5S first, then with Cinematch, and then with the iPhone with the Cinematch. I can't even tell these two apart, and one of these is an iPhone, and I am no colorist by any means. As long as you're shooting log format with both cameras, you can tweak the settings in Cinematch, and you'll always get that perfect match. Really love this tool. So click the link in the description below. You'll get 10% off your purchase. Thank you, Cinematch. Now let's take a look at how this example scene turned out, starting with the poorly paced version. Jim, hey, how you doing, buddy? Yeah, no, just good. Just been busy, you know, but... Busy's what we want, right? Reports? Um... They're coming right along. Yeah, I should be able to get those to you in... The McCluskey report? Yeah, let me, um... Yeah, yeah, I can have that for you in no time. What time is no time? No time is, uh... No time is lickety split o'clock, Jim. Tell you what, I'm gonna get right on that, and I'll keep you posted, and we'll circle back, all right? Okay, bye, Jim. Jesus... What? They're coming right along. Yeah, I should be able to get those to you in... The McCluskey report? Yeah, let me, um... We'll check on that. I think that one is just about done. Yeah, no, I can have that for you in no time.

Speaker 2: Well, Kent never got around to doing that McCluskey report. Not that day, nor any other day, neither. Instead, well, he watched Degrassi. The end. Clearly, the second part of the report was a little bit more Instead, well, he watched Degrassi.

Speaker 1: The end. Clearly, the second version got a lot stronger by keeping the pace just slightly ahead of the audience, and any little details we may have lost pale in comparison to what we gained with this stronger pacing. Pacing is about so much more than just eliminating shoe leather and playing your nut hand, as I call them, but being aware of these two concepts will immediately give you a couple of big wins with the pacing of your next film and help keep your audience engaged and along for the ride of your story. And for more about pacing, check out the screenwriting checklist I created here, because so many mistakes in pacing start at the script level, and there's a couple more examples in that video that might help illuminate these concepts for you. Oh, and for everybody that hits the thumbs up button, I'm going to hit this button.