A Quote by Brian Helgeland
I think test screenings with an audience are useful because they have no dog in the fight, they just say how they feel.
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I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our test screenings incredibly useful.
I'm the biggest proponent of test screenings now. There's two ways to face test screenings. For dramas, I don't know if I would rely on them as much, although I still think you need them, because you're making a movie for an audience at the end of the day. But with comedy... You could go through a script or anything I ever worked on, where you go, "This is hilarious," and you put it in front of people and you get nothing. And then the other side of it, is something you're like, "I think this is really stupid," and it gets a giant laugh.
Those of us who make films try to make something that we're feeling and that we would like. Then we just hope an audience responds the same way. It's very important to have the electrical circuit made, but I don't have control over how people feel when they flip the switch. So the whole idea of marketing research and test screenings is just foreign to me.
When you write something, at first you might feel very defensive and protective of every single thing, but after a while, you just see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes you do test screenings, and an audience tells you that, or sometimes you eventually just go, 'Let's cut the joke out.'
I like test screenings. I like to see a movie with an audience of strangers. I think it tells you a lot.
A key part of the process for me is having screenings: not official test screenings, just gatherings of people, some I know and some I don't. We ask what is working and what isn't. So it's not as if I'm shutting out input.
American dog say, 'Woof, woof.' Korean dog say, 'Mung, mung.' Polish dog say, 'How, how.' So which dog barking is correct? That is human beings' barking, not 'dog' barking. If dog and you become one hundred percent one, then you know sound of barking. This is Zen teaching. Boom! Become one.
With 'Good Will Hunting,' Miramax made certain the recruited audience wasn't expecting to laugh at Robin Williams like they normally do. From my limited experience, you can really blow test screenings by conducting them in the wrong way.
Can you design a Rorschach test that's going to make everyone feel something every time - and that looks like a Rorschach test? It's easy to show a picture of a kitten or a car accident. The question is, how abstract can you get and still get the audience to feel something when they don't know what's happening to them?
Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, "You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier."
I have a dog that loves to fight. It's a border collie, and they fight low to the ground. Other dogs are terrified of my dog, because he gets low and goes for the balls.
It would have been so perfectly ironic if I had been killed by the dog, because I was petting a dog who was not used to being pet, because I think I'm some kind of dog whisperer, and I think I can make any dog love me.
I think the purpose of test screenings is different for the studio and for the filmmaker. For the studio, I think they want to know whether the film works or not.
I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
The obvious thing is I would love to fight Conor McGregor. We've got some history there, and he won, and people saying he didn't knock me out because of an injury he had. I was injured in the fight, too, so let's test that theory. I want to test that theory.
The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.
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