The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Does the scene eliminate small talk and repeated beats by cutting out the beginning (or possibly even the middle)?

When you’re chopping down your first draft, one classic trick is to simply cut out the first two lines of every scene so that the audience has to hit the ground running each time. The first two lines serve to “set the scene,” but you don’t really want to do that: The audience likes to play catch-up and figure out on the fly which scene they’ve leaped into. 

But why stop there? You can also cut out the middle of scenes. In Easy Living, we see Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold start to argue about compound interest in the back of a car, then we cut to an exterior shot of the car crossing town, then jump forward to them getting out of the car once the argument has reached a crescendo. In a later scene, she walks into work wearing her new mink, which raises eyebrows, so then we jump inside the boss’s office as she’s already halfway through trying to explain how she got it. In each case, writer Preston Sturges uses a cut from outside to inside to hide the excision.

Earlier I quoted a scene from Chinatown where the director belatedly cut out a line that was overly prescient about the philosophy of the movie. Nobody misses this cut because the conversation moves out of the office, which allowed the film editors to cut outside a little early and hide the fact that part of the conversation is missing.

But you can also cut chunks out of the middle of scenes even without cutting away from the space you’re in. If you’ve got multiple conversations going on in the same space, you can hide time jumps whenever you cut back and forth between them. The 40-Year-Old Virgin cuts between four guys who are speed dating and manages to compress an hour down to five minutes, without resorting to jump cuts.

For this series, I examined these scenes:

The 40 Year Old Virgin	Andy goes home with a drunk woman from a Bachelorette party.
Alien	After the deaths of Kane, Brett and Dallas, Ripley becomes captain, so she has a meeting with the other survivors, Ash, Parker, and Lambert, to decide what to do next.
An Education	Jenny is amazed as David gets permission from her parents to take her on a weekend trip to Oxford by claiming to know C.S. Lewis.
The Babadook	Amelia chases her son Sam down to the basement, where he knocks her out, ties her up, and drives the Babadook out of her, temporarily.
Blazing Saddles	Bart arrives in town, then takes himself hostage to save himself from hostile townspeople
Blue Velvet	Jeffrey spies on Dorothy and Frank, then Dorothy catches Jeffrey in her apartment and has sex with him at knifepoint.
The Bourne Identity	Jason and Marie are attacked at her family’s farm by the assassin known as The Professor. Jason blows up a propane tank to distract him and kills him, but as the Professor dies he convinces Jason to come back.
Bridesmaids	Annie is driving angry after feuding with Helen when she gets pulled over by a cute cop, who gives her his number under the pretense of recommending a place to get her tail light fixed.
Casablanca	Sketchy crook Ugarte asks cool club owner Rick to hold onto the letters of transit for him.
Chinatown	Jake confronts Noah Cross with the glasses
Donnie Brasco	Lefty seeks to go behind Sonny Black’s back to set up his own meeting in Florida with Trifficante. He has Donnie borrow a boat for this purpose, but Sonny Black knows everything, and he crashes the party.  Lefty bitterly assumes that Donnie has betrayed him, and shuns him.  Sonny takes Donnie aside and elevates him above Lefty.
Do the Right Thing	Buggin’ Out notices that there are no brothers on the wall of Sal’s Pizzeria and decides to organize a boycott.
The Farewell	Billi finds out about Nai Nai’s diagnosis from her parents.
The Fighter	Micky and Charlene confront Micky’s family about his career.
Frozen	Anna confront Elsa in her ice palace
The Fugitive	Gerard confronts Kimble atop a dam, but Kimble leaps off.
Get Out	Chris sneaks out for a smoke in the night, has creepy encounters with Georgina and Walter, then finds Missy drinking tea.  She implores him to sit down, he repeats that he doesn’t want to be hypnotized, but she does it anyway with her teacup.  She gets him to admit the facts of his mother’s death, then sends him to a “sunken place” in his mind.
Groundhog Day	Phil takes Rita to a cafe and tries to convince her that he’s living the same day over and over. He convinces her by predicting what Larry will say.
How to Train Your Dragon	Hiccup and his students are in an arena competing to defeat a dragon, but Hiccup is quizzing their instructor to find out how to better commune with his own dragon, Toothless. Along the way, he uses what he learned from Toothless to peacefully subdue the dragon they’re fighting, infuriating the others.
In a Lonely Place	Laurel has made secret plans to leave town, but Dix makes her go to his favorite restaurant to celebrate their engagement with his agent, his alcoholic friend, and others.
Iron Man	Tony has built a better chest-device to keep shrapnel out of his heart, so he calls Pepper in to reach into his chest and replace the old one with a new one.
Lady Bird	Lady Bird flirts with Kyle in the parking lot.
Raising Arizona	During Hi and Ed’s first night with Junior, brothers Gale and Evelle show up having just escaped from jail, and begin to suspect the truth.
Rushmore	Max introduces himself to Ms. Cross on the bleachers.
Selma	King meets with Johnson in the Oval Office to try to get him to commit to a new Voting Rights Act
The Shining	Jack finally takes a drink from the ghosts in the ballroom. A waiter spills a drink on him, and takes him to the bathroom to clean it off.  While he does so, Jack realizes that the waiter is actually Grady, the former caretaker that killed his family.  Grady encourages him to do the same, but Jack is uncertain.
Sideways	Miles has struck out with Maya, but Jack comes back to the motel after a wild night with Steph, intending to go back out. Miles tries to get Jack to stay by forcing him to call his fiancé, but she doesn’t answer and Jack takes off with Steph after getting Miles to return his unused condom from the night before.
The Silence of the Lambs	Clarice first meets Lecter in his cell, under the pretense of getting him to fill out a questionnaire, but he quickly figures out that it’s really about Buffalo Bill, and that Clarice is hiding other things as well.
Star Wars	The gang takes over the Death Star command office.
Sunset Boulevard	Joe discovers Norma, who assumes that he’s there to plan her monkey’s funeral, but when he explains that he’s a screenwriter, she hires him to rewrite her screenplay for Salome instead.

So how did those scenes do with this question?

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES, both the beginning and parts of the middle.
Alien	YES, it starts late, in the heat of the conversation.
An Education	YES.  She walks in halfway through.
The Babadook	YES. It jumps ahead from when he knocks her out to when she’s tied up.
Blazing Saddles	NO. it starts at the beginning.
Blue Velvet	NO. it begins at the beginning and continues uncut.
The Bourne Identity	YES. it’s very jump-cutty in the middle.
Bridesmaids	YES. It jumps from being pulled over to the middle of the DUI test.
Casablanca	NO. it’s beginning to end.
Chinatown	YES. It starts at the beginning.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  both.
Do the Right Thing	YES. it begins at the moment that Buggin’ Out takes offense at the amount of cheese on his slice.
The Farewell	NO. Not really.  It starts at the beginning.
The Fighter	YES. we begin after they’ve been waiting for Alice for a while.
Frozen	NO. it begins at the beginning.
The Fugitive	NO. we get the entire (very brief) scene
Get Out	NO. it goes from the beginning.
Groundhog Day	YES. We cut straight to his reveal, after she’s been wondering and he’s been making small talk for a while.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Battle is already underway.
In a Lonely Place	YES. we begin when the last person arrives.
Iron Man	Sort of, it goes from her entrance to her exit, but he’s already very far along before he invites her down.
Lady Bird	NO. it starts at the beginning.
Raising Arizona	YES. Hi greets them before Ed comes in, so that we don’t have to hear that twice.
Rushmore	NO. It begins at the beginning.
Selma	NO. Not really, it begins when King arrives.  The scene does cut down what was probably a 45 minute meeting to 4 minutes, but the cuts are pretty seamless.
The Shining	NO. it begins at the beginning.
Sideways	YES. Not the beginning but elides the middle when Miles steps outside while Jack lies, cutting out stuff we don’t need to hear.
The Silence of the Lambs	NO, it begins at the beginning.
Star Wars	YES. We don’t see them make the plan, we just begin with the culmination of it.
Sunset Boulevard	NO. it starts at the beginning.