Editing Waiting for Guffman (section)

==Production==
The movie was shot in [[Lockhart, Texas]], a town located 30 miles south of [[Austin, Texas|Austin]]. Christopher Guest wanted to put a "Stool capital of the world" sign up over the town, but he was not granted permission to do so.<ref name="commentary"/> Additional shooting took place in Los Angeles, including the scenes set in Corky St. Clair's apartment.<ref name="commentary">Guest, Christopher, Levy, Eugene. ''Waiting for Guffman'' commentary, 2001.</ref>

As in the other mockumentary films created by Guest, the majority of the dialogue is improvised. Matt Keeslar was the only cast member with no history of doing improvisational acting.<ref name="commentary"/> Guest compares the process to jazz music: "You know the basic melody and the key changes, but it's how you get from one change to the next that matters, and you don't know in advance how you're going to do it. I'm completely blank before the camera rolls. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say." Guest shoots 10-minute-long scenes and allows improvisations to unfold organically. He ends up with almost 60 hours of film, and takes over a year to edit it down to about 90 minutes.<ref name="Grant">{{cite news |date=January 10, 2004 |author=Richard Grant |newspaper=[[The Guardian Weekend]] |title=Nowt so queer as folk |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/jan/10/features.weekend |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161219172254/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/jan/10/features.weekend |archive-date=December 19, 2016 |url-status=live |access-date=September 9, 2019}}</ref> A two-hour workprint version of ''Waiting for Guffman'' has circulated among fans, which includes some of the original footage that was edited out.