Ferris Beuller's Day Off: Saved in the Edit

A filmmaker's vision for a movie, the script, the resulting footage, and the finished product are often four very different stories. At any stage of the process, the team may decide that they need to go in a completely different direction.

John Hughes wrote the screenplay for the 1986 movie Ferris Beuller's Day Off in less than a week, and shot the film to follow that first draft. Once the scenes were assembled, the first cut was two hours and 45 minutes long! Even worse, test audiences didn't like it. Enter legendary editor Paul Hirsch to save the movie by editing all the footage that had been shot. Not only did he shorten it, but most importantly, he rearranged all the sequences. When you see what order they were in originally, you'll see how this made a vast improvement in the pacing and the audience's emotional involvement. (via The Awesomer)