Cutting characters, scenes, dialogue = cutting budget.

I called a friend who works primarily as an A.D. on big budget Hollywood films.

"My line producer just told me something I'll bet Adam Sandler never hears," I said.

"Spill it," she said.

"We need to cut some speaking roles or combine some existing ones," I said, parroting the Line Producer. "And we need to get our page count down."

"You're right," she said. "Adam Sandler never hears that."

Not that we're making an Adam Sandler picture. No disrespect to him or those filmmakers, but even if we wanted to make a film like that, we simply don't have that kind of budget.

One of the joys of any creative project is boundaries. Limitations. Parameters. It is also one of the frustrations. As P. Lyn said in typography class, "Limitations free you." She was right then and it applies now. We're going to make a funny, smart comedy, full of heart. It's going to look beautiful and it's going to be well-acted. It's already well-written. The immediate goal at hand is making it affordable. We don't have the luxury of playing too much. Every frame, every shot, every scene, every sequence needs to be completely considered now, before we get to the locations. Before we shoot one frame. And that's what we're doing. I don't want to sacrifice anything that we need, but at the same time I don't want to be inflexible.

This evening, after combing through the script, I found seven roles that could be severed, at least as speaking parts. It wasn't even difficult. Every movie should be so lean.