audition and subtraction

What happens when a new movie is being planned --- lots of "hopefuls" go in to try out for various part, but most of them get "taken away" (i.e., rejected) from the pool of possible prospects.

I like watching the "making of" bonus-material in DVDs of famous films... lots of interesting and informative material there. So often, the producers speak about how difficult the process of audition and subtraction was: "There was a lot of really awesome talent that we had to choose from , so it always really hurt us to apologetically tell some of the application that --- while they were indeed very good at what they did --- they just weren't quite what we were looking for in this particular movie.

by QuacksO April 27, 2019

Addition by subtraction

The phenomenon where a group of four or more people will raise their productivity in the event the least productive person is removed.

Me: “Have you seen Sam lately? We are finally making progress on our project & he is nowhere to be found?”
Boss: “Sam got canned yesterday. I walked him out personally. Sam was fired.”
Me: “Okay, yet another example of addition by subtraction”

by WeAreUFC October 10, 2025