The Whiplash Case Study from Short to Feature: What Chazelle Kept and Change

Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash(es) has become a case study on the site, because of the pace at which Chazelle released the short and feature (one year appart), and the accolades both formats received from the most powerful gatekeepers in indie and mainstream filmmaking (Sundance and the Academy).

Last year, I wrote about the three lessons we can learn from Whiplash the Short Film and Chazelle’s fearless journey, this year, thanks to Jacob T. Swinney, you can watch first hand, a cross-cut between the scene Chazelle took from his feature screenplay and made as a short (left screen) and the same scene he kept within the feature film.

What’s obvious here is that:

the writing doesn’t blink. The scene is exactly the same, from arch to tension and resolution, if you can call it so.

Chazelle’s coverage barely changes either

the only massive differences between the short and the feature are the set design and the visual lush, and by that I mean the lighting and color-correction. In the feature version, there’s more room for smoother camera-movements, and literally more room to place Neiman (the main character) so he could be isolated from the drum set.

Those are overall minor touches, not that they don’t make a difference -the image improvement is what took the film to another level and probably what made it possible to be even considered for the awards race, but the story and the composition were there.

And these two things happen on paper during development and pre-production. A good news I’d say.

If you’re curious to know more about Chazelle and the Whiplash journey, these articles that will interest you: