Chat Back: The Sunset Shot

At my brief time at film school I learned something called the ‘Sunset Shot’.

The sunset shot is that one shots all young and inexperienced directors hanker to get. It’s that shot of a life lifetime. That one shot of sheer brilliance. To get it they put together an enormous crew, get up early, travel vast distances to a secret location, and spend more money on this one shot than any other. But when they get it is magnificent. It is absolutely perfect.

Then what happens is our green director goes to the editing suit and sits in on the first cut. Now editors are great storytellers. They have to be because they need to take all the footage given to them and make sense of it, create the story and keep it inline with the director’s vision for the film.

Anyway, our inexperienced director watches as the editor gets to this one shot only to cut it out, and figuratively leave it on the cutting room floor.

Horrified the director will most likely say something like: "What are you doing? That’s the perfect shot!", to which the editor will most likely reply: "You’re right, it is a beautiful shot but it doesn’t fit. It’s doesn’t move the story forward."

We all have our sunset shots. We all have that one idea, concept, or piece of work that we hang on to for dear life. But it may not be the best or most suitable one and by clinging onto our sunset shots we are in fact getting in the way and stopping other great ideas coming through.

Here’s the thing, half the time we don’t even know we have them. But if you challenge yourself you will probably find it. Or, if you listen you’ll hear something suggesting you have one. You need to be open enough to recognise it and then let it go.

Am I saying throw your sunset shot away completely? No I am not. What I am saying is park it for a while and see if you can come up with something better, something more suitable, a different alternative.

As the old creative saying goes, ‘what’s the second right answer’. You can always return to your sunset shot later if it is in fact the perfect shot. But let’s not get in the way of greatness because we think we have already found it.