Paper Chain Scene Measurement

physical technique for analyzing documentary pacing by printing the entire script, cutting it into a long paper chain, and visually identifying scenes that are disproportionately long. Editor Steve Audette uses this method to find scenes to trim, following the rule of thumb that 'no scene in an hour-long show should be longer than the length of hand and a half of the script.' This provides a tangible, non-temporal metric for evaluating scene length and its impact on the overall narrative flow.