Archive - The Rough Cut

Claude vs. Chat

The Half-Trillion Dollar Superbowl ad Rap Beef

Feb 20

The future is USB?

Two programmers just launched Video Store.Age, a distribution label selling indie films on encrypted USBs.

Feb 10

Indie film makes peace with AI

Sundance makes it official, Aronofsky makes it awkward. The normalization continues.

Feb 4

January 2026

The week Vimeo laid off its entire video team

Bending Spoons continue to bend Vimeo whilst Sinners bends Oscar history.

Jan 26

Who Are Press Junkets For Anymore?

How the Four Seasons junket suite became a podcast studio and changed how we talk about movies

Jan 25

Bugonia: A Tale of Two Yorgos

Inside the edit of Lanthimos’ closest collaborator (not Emma Stone)

Jan 16

Right Hand Woman to Left-Handed Girl: Shih-Ching Tsou’s iPhone Netflix Debut

After twenty years as Sean Baker’s right hand, Tsou’s iPhone-shot debut reframes Dogme realism for a Taiwanese family drama set inside Taipei’s night…

Jan 9

Bullshit videos: a theory

Or: What happens when AI reveals that nobody wanted this content anyway

Jan 3

December 2025

The Third Safdie: Ronald Bronstein and the Art of Editing Without Assembly Cuts

A deep dive into the editor who turns footage into warfare, scripts into tyranny, and Marty Supreme into a single sustained panic attack.

Dec 26, 2025

Jafar Panahi: The Filmmaker Who Won a Palme d’Or by Making a Film in Secret

He once smuggled his film out of Iran inside a birthday cake. Or did he? A story about MacBook Airs, police raids, and making cinema against all odds

Dec 18, 2025

The Rough Cut: 2025 Wrap-Up

What our biggest deep dives and the year’s biggest news revealed about where video is heading.

Dec 11, 2025

How Steven Soderbergh Shot a Feature in 13 Days...and Had a Rough Cut Three Hours Later

A masterclass in real-time editing, built for the era of mobile cameras and pocket post-production.

Dec 4, 2025

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