Yesterday I nearly cut the one shot I actually wanted to keep.

It was pretty simple: an illustrated dog behind a shop window, with someone stopping outside. The dog notices them and walks a little closer to the glass.

That was the part I liked.

But I'd put too much in front of it.

There was a street shot, another angle inside the shop, then a close-up before anything really happened.

Watching it back, the beginning felt long.

At first I shortened the window scene.

That wasn't really the problem.

So I put it back and removed one of the earlier shots instead.

The pacing felt better to me, and I ended up trimming another shot after that.

I was using Seedance 2.5 for the scene, and I spent most of that afternoon cutting things from my original idea.

I still watched each new version before changing something else. A cut that makes sense in my notes doesn't always feel right once everything is moving, and the generated timing can come out differently from what I pictured.

Eventually I stopped touching the window scene.

It was fine where it was.

I didn't delete the unused shots, though. They're still sitting in the project folder.

Maybe one of them will be useful later.