ABSTRACT
After weeks or months of sustained editing and several rough-cut versions a debilitating familiarity sets in. You lose objectivity and the ability to make judgments on behalf of an audience. Every version begins to look the same, and all look too long. You have become obsessed with particular faults in your footage, and curing them seems overwhelming. Not unusually, you want to hang on to a sequence or a minor character that the editor and others think is redundant. These are your darlings, and you must kill them if the lm is to be consistent and work well.
