Issue No.3 – The Director's Cut

In This Issue
• Creating the Director's Cut of my award-winning short film
• Beyond the festival run - Re-editing tightens the cutting
• Lilly wasn't really dead…or was she?
• Getting rid of the grain
• Arlin Godwin tracks getting airplay at NeonVerse Radio Toronto
• My new single WATCHING AS YOU GO BY - free to you

In the summer of 2024, I was working at WJLA TV as Senior Designer when I met Trevor Taylor - a world-class news cameraman, photographer, writer, graphics designer, filmmaker, and video editor in Washington, DC.

Trev had seen my earlier films THE MAN IN 813, GO WITH THE FLOW, and VIOLENT TRUE BELIEVER...all of which are free to watch on my site arlingodwin.com. 

He came into the Design room one afternoon; we met, we talked, we hit it off, and decided we should make a new short film together. Kind of pooling our resources. 

I proposed an old idea which at that time was called PASSENGER...about a photographer roaming the underground world of the DC subway system, taking photos that revealed ghosts in his images.

Over the next few months we changed the story somewhat and put a screenplay together. Trevor co-wrote the film, shot a great deal of it, and became Producer as well. That's him in the top right if this photo.

Trevor asked his friend actor and drama teacher Joseph Groth (bottom left) if he was interested in playing Aaron Hayes, the film's protagonist. I met Joe in October of 2024 and the three of us decided to make a movie.

That project became STOP TAKING PICTURES.


It was released on July 4, 2025, and has now screened in competition at close to 100 international film festivals. Rome, Florence, India. Chicago, New York, Vietnam, Hollywood, Portugal, Seattle, Los Angeles, London (8 times), and so far we’ve picked up 18 awards!

Which was and is amazing. I never in a million years thought this little movie would become as successful as it has been.

We screened in August of 2025 at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. STAR WARS and the WIZARD OF OZ, among many other films, both debuted on that same screen years ago.

In February of 2026, we finally got a hometown Washington, DC premiere at the DC Independent Film Festival, screening at the Regal Gallery Place Cinema in downtown Washington, not far from the White House.

BELOW - that's me--second from the left, answering audience questions on February 13, 2026, at the Regal in DC.

And it's still not over!

We just screened last weekend at the Festival of Cinema in NYC where STOP TAKING PICTURES was nominated for Best Picture Editing. 
So the run is ongoing.

And now, a year later, I’m releasing THE DIRECTOR’S CUT free on YouTube and on my own site arlingodwin.com.

KEY MOMENTS IN THE MAKING OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT

* I FINALLY HAD TIME TO EDIT THE MOVIE!
Almost every edit in the film was re-examined. I wanted to make sure that the cuts were as smooth as possible, and that means looking at an actor’s actions--as he, for instance, approaches a bench at a Metro Station and then sits down. I did that in two shots. The first shot is straight on, and that CUTS TO a side shot of Joe actually sitting down. The CUT is the place where his action overlaps, and you want to match his action in both shots. That way, you get a smoother cut, and nobody notices it. I did this kind of frame-by-frame adjustment throughout the film…shot after shot after shot. Took weeks!

* LINA WASN'T REALLY DEAD...OR WAS SHE?
Lina Romero (below on the big screen at the Regal) is a wonderful actress and model. She played Lilly Hayes, the supposedly dead wife of Aaron Hayes, the photographer in STOP TAKING PICTURES.

I asked her to wear those cat-eye sunglasses because Catherine Deneuve wore something similar in Tony Scott's film THE HUNGER, and I always loved that look. 

Even though she’s supposed to be dead, Lina/Lilly appears quite a few times throughout the film. But I noticed that after Aaron vanishes, I had made so many small improvements in the cutting that I had a few seconds of black where I could add something new if I wanted to. 

I had bought myself a few shocking seconds by trimming elsewhere!

It would have to be quick--but what I came up with was Lina/Lilly suddenly appearing wearing a very witch-like hooded robe... black, of course, and I added the snow coming down around her as she simply stares at us. 

To do this, I found a stock shot on Pixabay. Free of charge!  And then went back to some of the green screen footage Trevor and I had captured of Lina on the last day of shooting. We shot her at my condo in downtown DC, only a few blocks from the White House on a Saturday afternoon. 

BELOW - the stock shot and the final COMP with Lina's face tracked in and digital snow falling around her.

The idea was to suggest even more strongly that Lina/Lilly was not really dead and that she definitely killed her husband.

Anyway, I didn’t make the movie longer at all. I just made the existing film more revealing.

* THE GRAIN WE ADDED ON PURPOSE WAS REMOVED

You finish the deadline version. Then you live with it.

Then you see it projected.

Then you see it on television. Then you see it on YouTube.

Then you notice something.

Then you think:

"I can fix that."

ABOVE - noise looks cool on a theater screen, not so cool on the home screen.

So,  two years later, you're back inside the movie working on what you thought was finished!

On a 60-foot-wide cinema screen at the Regal and other theaters where the film was shown, the grain Trevor and I had intentionally added looked really cool.

But on my 60-inch LG 4K HDR television, it looked terrible.

Turns out that YouTube's codecs don't deal well with constantly changing noise and grain. So, I removed it. And when you watch the DIRECTOR's CUT, you'll now see a much cleaner, sharper image. Not that the grain hurt as far as the festivals were concerned. We still got selected at nearly 100 festivals and won 18 awards.

So adding grain in Adobe's Premiere Pro editor was the right artistic decision for the theatrical presentation, but not right for digital delivery.

Anyway, check out the DIRECTOR's CUT if you want to see the new, cleaned-up version.

* ONE MORE THING

I've apparently made it to Toronto. Music-wise, that is.

Mathew at NEON VERSE RADIO contacted me a week or so ago and asked me to send them some music. I sent a whole folder of headshots and tracks, and BABY YOU'RE A BIG STAR NOW is on the air at this new, growing radio station. Give them a listen, and you might hear one of my tracks!

_____________________________________________________________

Okay. That's enough from me for now.

If you're reading this, thank you as always for being here.

The studio is open again.

I'll see you in the next issue.

Keep making things!

If you've got a story of your own, send it my way.

Just hit Reply.

I read every message.

Check out Trevor Taylor's cool new short film WHAT REMAINS OF PROJECT FALCON, which also stars Joseph Groth & Lina Romero.

Also, Writer/Producer and Cinematographer Trevor Taylor's photography 
is very cool and can be viewed at TREVOR-TAYLOR.NET

Read more Studio Life at  ARLINGODWIN.COM