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How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck
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Brevity and Restraint

How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck Steve Stockman
rubbermaid-rule short-shots verbal-padding cutting graphics restraint

Key Principle

Less is more at every level of video production: shorter total runtime, shorter individual shots, fewer transitions, sparser dialogue, and minimal graphics. Restraint is not a limitation -- it is the primary mechanism by which amateur work becomes professional.

Why This Matters

Without deliberate restraint, every default pushes toward bloat. Creators overestimate how long they need (the Rubbermaid Rule), leave shots running past their useful life, narrate what the viewer can already see, hedge with weasel words, keep scenes out of attachment, and pile on graphics and effects. The audience does not know your intended length or your effort -- they only know the moment they lose interest. Every surplus second is an invitation to disengage.

Good Examples

  1. The baby-cake cut. Shot 1: clean baby eyes the cake. Shot 2: baby covered in chocolate. All travel time removed. "Just as cute, much less boring." (Ch. 67) This demonstrates that the audience interpolates transitions for free -- showing them is redundant.

  2. Health Squad structural cut. Three segments each ran 3+ minutes against a 90-second target. Frame trimming saved only 20 seconds. Cutting entire storylines -- the dinner scene, the exercise bike, an extra joke -- brought it under two minutes, and "a funny thing happened. It started to come alive. Everything made more sense." (Ch. 66)

  3. Super Size Me Monopoly graphic. A fat-cat animation told a single story point about fast-food economics. The author remembers the idea but not the numbers -- proof the graphic communicated correctly by using story structure rather than dense data. (Ch. 70)

Counterpoints

  • "It was so hard to shoot." Sunk cost. The audience never saw the effort. (Ch. 66)
  • "So-and-so will be mad if I cut them." Social pressure. The audience doesn't know the person. (Ch. 66)
  • "It's my favorite shot." Personal attachment. The audience doesn't share it. (Ch. 66)
  • "I need transitions to smooth rough edits." The roughness is a content problem (bad shot order, missing coverage), not a transition problem. Effects paper over the symptom. (Ch. 65)
  • "The audience needs context before the main action." They don't. A scene "twice as long" as needed becomes "30 times as boring." (Ch. 67)
  • "I should describe what's on screen." The audience can see and read. Narrating the pictures wastes time and insults their intelligence. (Ch. 15)

Key Quotes

"Take the amount of time you think you need to say what you want to say and cut it by two thirds." (Ch. 9)

"Padding is just another word for boring." (Ch. 9)

"On video, our normal protective padding becomes boring and incomprehensible." (Ch. 15)

"The audience is just as smart as we are. They can see and they can read." (Ch. 15)

"If you remember one thing from this book, make it this: Shorter is almost always better. It's true in overall video length, and it's true when you think about individual shots." (Ch. 27)

"Cutting makes us pay attention. Each cut to a new shot forces our brains to figure out what we're looking at and what it means." (Ch. 27)

"The difference between a great video and one that sucks often comes down to how much you're willing to get rid of." (Ch. 66)

"It's easy to throw out the bad stuff. The hard part is throwing away the good stuff." (Ch. 66)

"If you cut something and don't miss it, it shouldn't have been there in the first place." (Ch. 67)

"One of the questions you should be asking yourself often in edit is 'What do I need this for?' If the answer is 'I don't, really,' you cut it. That goes triple... or perhaps quadruple for graphics." (Ch. 70)

Rules of Thumb

  1. The Rubbermaid Rule. Take your initial time estimate and cut it by two-thirds. If you think 10 minutes, plan for 3. (Ch. 9)
  2. Short shots by default. Professional media rarely holds a shot beyond 20 seconds. Most are far shorter. (Ch. 27)
  3. All-cuts first. Edit every project using only cuts. You will almost never add transitions back. (Ch. 65)
  4. Structural cut before frame trim. Shot-by-shot trimming yields marginal gains; removing entire storylines is where mediocre becomes good. (Ch. 66)
  5. Doubt means cut. If you are unsure whether something works, it doesn't. Problems magnify with repeated viewing; strong material grows on you. (Ch. 66)
  6. Get in late, get out early. Enter a scene at the latest possible moment; exit as soon as the essential content lands. (Ch. 67)
  7. The Bare Essence trim. Trim one line from the opening, play it back. Repeat until cutting breaks comprehension, then undo one. Do the same from the end. (Ch. 67)
  8. Graphics earn their place only four ways: title, identifier, entertainment, credits. Everything else demands justification you probably cannot give. (Ch. 70)
  9. Video cannot do dense facts. Charts and data slides violate the medium. One point per graphic, told as a story. (Ch. 70)
  10. Time limits force quality. Without a hard constraint, editors rationalize keeping marginal material. Impose your own limit and err short. (Ch. 66)

Related References