When you have good writing, the rhythm of the scene is very apparent. What the scene demands is very clear.
If your character is written well and is meaty enough, even two scenes has the potential to stand out.
Any director, if you really ask them, will tell you that the toughest thing to do is like a dinner table or a dialogue scene, because you need to keep that electricity maintained throughout the course of the film.
When you have quick scenes, it becomes difficult to ascertain where your character fits and where they're going. I always enjoy scenes that have a movement to them.
I love the way the long scenes feel - one of the characteristics of '70s filmmaking is that you don't cut around a lot; you let things play out. I did that on 'Samurai Jack,' and it carried over into 'Clone Wars.'
When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long.
The parts of a film should be in proportion to the whole, and a long film pasted together out of quick little scenes makes me dizzy.
Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.
I think that's my approach: If it feels right for a scene to be whole, to hold on without cutting for a long time, then that's great. But other scenes, they don't want it.
I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.
Every other show that I'm on, they're always rushed, and you feel this pressure to hurry up and get out of the scene, but I don't feel that way on 'Transparent.' They like to linger in these scenes.
