Knowing full well that I walk a tightrope when engaging you, I will say this:


Overall, the story is what matters in filmmaking. The editing of images is what actually tells the story.

Kubrick had this to say about his methods:

Your first responsibility in writing a screenplay is to pay the closest possible attention to the author's ideas and make sure you really understand WHAT he has written and WHY he has written it. The next thing is to make sure that the story survives the selection and compression which has to occur in order to tell it in a maximum of three hours, preferably two.

This is very important. But we all know Kubrick didn't write original screenplays- he adapted novels.
He also believed that a page of a script is one minute of film, and a film shouldn't have more than 120 scenes.

Films must have a structure that suits the story- Kubrick also said effective balance and effective scenes are not achievable without shifting various elements such as characters, dialogue, etc., and that some things have to be directly expressed.
(And useless complications eliminated) or as Cocteau called it:
Shaking the tree and keeping what clings