The Relationship between Film Producers and Audiences: Part 1

There is a two way flow of information between producers of films and the audiences that they target.  Producers gain feedback from audiences about their films through audience research.  This is often done through test screenings but increasingly through internet research to see the responses of bloggers and opinion makers to early marketing and news surrounding the films.  On the other hand producers use a huge range of marketing techniques to deliver information about films to their target audience and beyond.

 Audience Research

Test Screenings are the most common form of audience research used by Hollywood and the film industry as a whole.  Often long in advance of the release of a film, a small audience will be invited to a secret preview.  Effects may not be completed, the soundtrack may be temporary and the film will sometimes have barely left the edit suite before it is screened to a few people to gain feedback from the audience.  Questionnaires or focus groups are used after the film and the audience asked to participate.  The audience will be responsible for giving the filmmakers feedback on what does and doesn’t work and the responses could lead to drastic changes in the film or the marketing strategy before it is finally released.  

Silent film star Harold Lloyd and producer Hal Roach are considered to be the pioneers of test screenings.  The pair would take early cuts of films to a theatre to gauge audience response. Directors (and stars) in the early days of the Hollywood studio system were contracted to work on films the studio wanted them to and almost certainly had no say over the final cut of the films. In the case of Should Sailors Marry? (1925), the ‘director/writer Jess Robbins washed his hands of the picture’ (Sinnott, 2005) after test screenings produced negative responses.  Producer Hal Roach got a replacement director in to re-shoot some scenes and the film was salvaged.

However sometimes it can be the director who wants test screenings and invites feedback from audiences.  Billy Wilder screened an early cut of his classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) for an audience and was told by a woman in attendance that "I never saw such a pile of shit in all my life" (Hennigan, 2003).  After attending this test screening, he chopped the opening and closing scenes due to the audience’s responses.

Test screenings can be responsible for a huge range of changes made to a film from a complete re-shooting of the ending all the way down to just a title change.  For example the title of the Bond film Licence to Kill (1989) ‘was initially… Licence Revoked, but this was changed after test screenings revealed that US crowds associated the term with driving’ (Radford, 2008).

Many films have had drastic changes made to them at huge costs.  Little Shop of Horrors (1986) was test screened in front of an audience of families and as a result had a completely new ending created.  Seven (1995), David Fincher’s bleak serial killer masterpiece, ends with (SPOILER!) the hero’s wife’s severed head delivered to the hero in a box.  The film shows the graphic, gory aftermath of several severely sickening slayings and was tested in front of an audience told they would be seeing the new Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman movie.  ‘At the time Freeman was best known for being in Driving Miss Daisy and Pitt for Legends of the Fall.  As a result ‘one older woman who walked out halfway through the movie said, "Whoever made this piece of filth should be shot"...directly to David Fincher’ (http://www.everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=1316247).  Fortunately Pitt and Fincher fought for the depressing ending and the studio kept it intact, resulting in the film becoming a classic of the crime genre.  

Bleak, uncertain or open endings are often the casualties of test screenings.  Blade Runner (1982), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Australia (2008) all had different endings to those originally scribbled by the writers and shot by the directors. Monahan (2008) argues the studio executives require directors to shoot new endings so that filmgoers will be left ‘with a collective smile on their faces and therefore, so the logic goes, render the film more lucrative.’

Some films have benefited greatly from test screenings including Paranormal Activity (2007).  The footage from audience test screenings was used in the trailer to show how people were reacting to the film. See below.

Some critics are fearful that test screenings are damaging as they can lead to piracy and leaks. Others are concerned about the demographic that are targeted by the major studios.  ‘‘’Typical'' American moviegoers get to tell the Hollywood bigs how to improve their products before they're released. Test-audience members are often white males, 16 to 32 years old, who are recruited in L.A. suburbs, usually from colleges and shopping malls’ (Vaughn, 1991).  As this demographic is considered to be the biggest cinema-going audience, studios pay more attention to what young white males have to say.  Therefore films aimed at different ethnicities, gender and age groups may be affected by the desire to appeal to the widest audience with the most disposable income.  

Monahan puts his criticisms most bluntly; ‘First, test-audiences are essentially filmmaking-by-committee, and as everyone knows, no committee has ever made anything entirely worthwhile in the history of creation.  Second, when you really think about it, it's the bleakest endings that stick most powerfully in the mind’ (Monahan, 2008).  

So, is it fair that audiences and profit-hungry executives get the final say after filmmakers shed blood, sweat and tears creating the films?  Just remember if you get into a test screening; the power to change the movies could be in your hands.  

An extended version of this article first appeared in MediaMagazine.

Part 2 on Marketing coming soon.

References

Hennigan, 2003 

Monahan, 2008 

Radford, 2008 

Sinnott, 2005 

Vaughn, 1991 

Other

What do you think of test screenings?   Necessary evil, sensible, fair, terrible, cruel and unusual?

Two articles for the price of one!

My ninth and tenth articles are both published in the February issue of the amazing Media Magazine.  You can subscribe to the magazine here.  The magazine and the articles are aimed at A Level and BTEC media students but I'm sure anyone with an interest in film audience research or Kevin Macdonald's recent documentary Life in a Day will find them interesting.  If you have not seen the wonderful Life in a Day yet, I insist you must.  It's online for free and totally legal right here.  

My articles are titled Test Screenings: Exhibition, Participation and Intervention and Life in a Day: Creation through Participation.  The theme of the issue was participation and the media, hence the titles!

The issue also contains an article from the always interesting James Rose on feature films made about participatory TV. 

This follows my articles in previous issues on:

1. Participating in a reality TV show (December 2009)
2. Sacha Baron Cohen's mock-docs (April 2010)
3. Stop-motion animation (September 2010)
4. Michael Moore's Documentaries (December 2010)
5. Ghetto Culture in City of God and La Haine (February 2011)
6. The collaborations of Fincher and Pitt (April 2011)
7. The cinema of 9/11 (September 2011)
8. Documentaries that attack America (December 2011) 

Here is a brief sample of the new articles:

Test Screenings are the most common form of audience research used by Hollywood and the film industry as a whole.  Long in advance of the release of a film, a small audience will be invited to a secret preview.  Effects may not be completed, the soundtrack may be temporary and the film will sometimes have barely left the edit suite before it is screened to a few film fans to gain feedback from the audience.  A questionnaire is generally handed out after the film and the audience asked to complete it.  Questions could be on anything from the opening of the film, to individual characters, to the soundtrack, or even to the ending of the film.  The audience will be responsible for giving the filmmakers feedback on what does and doesn’t work and the responses could lead to drastic changes in the film or the marketing strategy before it is finally released.  Attendees are asked to sign a non-disclosure form so they cannot leak details of the film on their blogs or to the press.  With test screenings becoming increasingly common, the question is; should the artist or the audience get the final cut?

AND

With participants that range from a little boy that shines shoes for a living in Peru to a smug American Lamborghini owner, Life in a Day crosses the globe and brings viewers a taste of a huge range of cultures, from the super rich to those that have nothing.  As a social experiment, not just a feature documentary film, the filmmakers wanted to make this a global project.  No doubt to avoid accusations of ethnocentrism and an attempt to eliminate too great a focus on ‘narcissistic, bedroom-bound western teenagers’ (Macdonald, 2011), the filmmakers wanted to include people from the developing world that don’t traditionally have access to cameras, computers or any means to upload their footage to Youtube.  So Macdonald and his team spent £40,000 on 400 HD cameras and had ‘various aid organisations distribute them among people in remote towns and villages’ (Macdonald, 2011) in around forty different developing countries.  The images and sounds of Angolan women that sing as they work, the men who herd goats and the people who dwell in the rainforests are testament to the films attempt to bring representation of all corners of the globe to the big screen.

 So what are you waiting for?  Go subscribe now here.  And thanks for reading!

2011 List #6: Highlights

Beginning the year with an advance screening of 127 Hours followed by a Q&A with one of my favourite directors, Danny Boyle, was my absolute highlight of the year.  Not only did I get to see one of the best films of the year, I also got to ask Mr Boyle a question.  My career in film journalism failed to take off immediately as I'd hoped but my burning desire to tell everybody about this incredible moment was what got me starting this here blog.  Thanks again to Lovefilm for organising this event and for giving me the opportunity to speak to one of my heroes.  See the video of my nervous question-asking here.  That's me asking the first question.


Here are some frankly pretty poor photos of Mr Boyle I took with my crappy camera.  

 

My other highlight was an advance screening of Attack the Block followed by a Q&A with director Joe Cornish and stars John Boyega, Jodie Whitaker and Luke Treadaway.  Here's another pretty poor photo featuring from left to right: John Boyega (Moses the badass), Luke Treadaway (the posh one), Jodie Whitaker (the nurse in distress) and Joe Cornish (debut director extroardinaire).

Another excellent screening organised by Lovefilm that I was lucky enough to get myself tickets to, the film is another of my favourites of the year and it was great to ask the cast what Joe Cornish was like as a director.  Sadly there is no video evidence of this.  However what was cool was that more of the cast were in the audience and so was a certain Mr Edgar frigging Wright, producer of the film and director of Shaun of the Dead!!!  Here is possibly the worst quality photo of Joe Cornish ever taken. 





After the film and Q&A, I managed to get a few sneaky photos of the cast outside the cinema.  I was convinced this film would be easily as big as Shaun of the Dead and really enjoyed seeing the young cast members hanging around outside like ordinary mates before they get super famous.  John Boyega seems to be on the way to doing bigger things with Spike Lee's new TV series Da Brick already in the can.  As for Franz Drameh and Alex Esmail (also pictured here), the future looks less bright for now.  But here's hoping at least Esmail who played Pest, the comical runt of the gang, can get more work.

And here is the mighty Edgar Wright, who I managed to sneak a quick handshake with before he disappeared.










So those were my two main highlights of the year.  As I have posted about before here, this is the year that I tried really hard to get to as many preview screenings and Q&A's as possible.  Lovefilm, Total Film and ShowFilmFirst have been brilliant, but also Paramount Pictures put on a couple (Footloose and Tomorrow When the War Began) too.  Like an astronomer, I got to see the stars up close including Anna Faris, Jessica Brown-Findlay and Rachel Hurd Wood and I also got to review some films before they actually came out such as Bridesmaids, Stake Land, What's Your Number?, Real Steel and Life in a Day. 

I also got to go to a test screening of the directorial debut of Ben Drew (aka Plan B) which was a really interesting experience, particularly as I teach about these to media students and have recently written an article for Media Magazine about them. 

I only got up to the London Film Festival once but I got to hear a talk from Kevin MacDonald (director of Life in a Day), Asif Kapadia (director of Senna) and Carol Morley (director of Dreams of a Life) on the boundaries between fact and fiction.  I also met Jonothan Rhodes in the audience; star, producer and co-writer of the great short film Big Society. 

Another very personal highlight is that this year I started my PhD.  My supervisor introduced me to the director of supremely sick but hugely influential masterpiece/abomination Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deaodato, before a special screening of the film in London.  Here's a sneaky picture I took.  The girl in the background is his grand daughter who I can thankfully add did not stay for the screening.






Finally, every time I get a comment or I see that the pageviews on my blog posts have gone up has been a highlight for me.  I love writing about films and I love doing this blog.  I'm sure many people would think I'm far too old to be starting a blog but it is giving me great joy and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.  So this a massive, huge, incredibly soppy thank you to anyone reading this, and to everyone who has read, commented on or left a link to one of my posts this year.  Special mention must go to Scott at Front Room Cinema who seems to comment on everything I write and every other blog I read and to CS at Big Thoughts from a Small Mind who has posted many a link to my blog. These guys have fantastic blogs and their encouragement makes me feel stronger when I worry that my words will not be read.

And if anyone has any advice about how to get in to more preview screenings, I will be eternally grateful.  Happy New Year everybody and here's to all the film bloggers and makers out there, may you live long and prosper!

Test Screenings

Touchy subject in the film industry this. Test screenings are happening more and more these days with producers insisting that filmmakers get feedback from audiences before releasing their films commercially.

Some filmmakers refuse. Terry Gilliam for example. Put some of his old films in front of an average audience and they may not have ever seen the light of day. Spielberg doesn't do them. His films always make money. The distributors of Paranormal Activity used footage of test screenings in the trailer for the film. They also changed the ending due to audience feedback.

What's the point? Audience research. Producers want to ensure the film appeals to the widest possible audience. So they screen the film early, get the audience to fill in a questionnaire and then they make changes. Maybe the film needs to be shortened to a more manageable length. Maybe some scenes are not working, some sub-plots are unnecessary or some effects look shabby.

But is this fair on filmmakers who shed blood, sweat and tears for the film? Has their soveriegnty been taken away unfairly? Does the film belong to a director or the investors? It's understandable that producers, financers, investors want to see a film make money and I'm sure most directors want everyone to get paid. But isn't the money being put into the filmmaker as much as the film? Isn't their some trust in the filmmaker's creativity and vision?

Are audiences really experts on film anyway? I'm sure many would argue that audiences are the perfect people to be giving the filmmakers feedback. After all we are the ones that are going to pay to watch the film. We watch films. We know what we like and what we don't like.

But looking at the questionnaire after attending a test screening on Tuesday (04/10/11), I started to wonder about the range of responses Revolver Entertainment would be getting from us. As a media teacher I like to think I know a fair bit about film, narrative, scriptwriting, production etc. I tried to make my responses reflect this. But I'm not sure that I'm even the target audience for this film so are my responses valid? And I found it very hard to fill out the form thoughtfully and carefully. I wonder if others had more or less trouble.

Anyway I signed a non-disclosure form without reading it so I'm assuming I'm not allowed to say anything about the film. I don't know if I can even mention that the film is being test screened. However the film in question will be released in February and I was told that that they are trying to cut the length of it down by around 40 minutes. I can't imagine what this is like for the filmmakers. I could only identify a couple of scenes that I felt were unnecessary. So I can't say much because the film will change.

All I will say is the music is unsurprisingly outstanding and the opening credits blew me away. So I hope they stay as they were. It's a grim, gritty film and an extremely promising directorial debut. The narrative structure and many of the stylistic techniques of the film were excellent in this early cut. The writer/director just added another talent to his already glowing career.

In completely unrelated news:

Ben Drew a.k.a. Rap/Soul artist Plan B says:

"there’ll also be my first full-length film, which I’m titling ‘Ill Manors’”, he adds: “Which is a hip hop, music-based feature film which has six short stories that all kinda mix together to make one BIG story - and each mini-story will be represented by a different hip hop track. It’ll all be narrated by me, and it’ll actually be the reverse of ‘The Defamation Of Strickland Banks’ - in that with ‘Ill Manors’ the film will come out first and the soundtrack will come afterwards. And again the soundtrack will be a film for the blind, in that you’ll be able to listen to it and it’ll tell you the story of the film…" (http://www.bluesandsoul.com/feature/522/plan_b_from_a_to_b)