Aug
10
They can demand last-minute rewrites, reshoots and recasting. They can radically alter a director’s original intentions. They can fill out a detailed comment card after watching a movie, and with a few scribbles, potentially change cinematic history. But they don’t work for a major movie studio. They don’t even have full-time jobs.
They are test audiences.
When I first moved to L.A., I couldn’t find employment right away. I could, however, find several local movie theaters to patronize. I had enough money saved up to get by for a couple months before having to rely on a steady income. So whenever I was exasperated by my fruitless job search, I’d go to the movies and remind myself that at least someone was finding work making films.
That’s where I found them — test audience recruiters, handing out free passes to movies that weren’t scheduled to come out for months, movies that were in post-production, movies that were being “tested.”
Y’see, studios don’t hire writers and producers and directors because they think those people know how to make a good movie. I mean, they hope that these expensive filmmaker types have a good movie in them, but at the end of the day, they’re not 100% convinced. No, the only way to guarantee a movie will be a surefire hit is to screen it for 200 or so under-employed movie-goers — people who might have virtually no idea how to even make a movie — and ask for their feedback once it’s over. All the USC Cinema grads in the world can’t possibly know more about filmmaking than a couple hundred schmucks who show up for a free movie in the middle of a weekday.
I’ve actually been one of those schmucks more a few times. Let’s see if I can’t remember the test screenings I’ve been to. Here goes:
“Willard”
“The Core”
“Freaky Friday”
“Gigli”
“Wrong Turn”
“Suspect Zero”
“The Butterfly Effect”
“28 Days Later”
“Firewall”
Yes, I saw all those gems way before you avoided them at multiplexes. I do take some pride in having seen “The Core” twice without having paid for it either time — the first screening was of course when I was in the test audience, the second was at a press screening. No, I’m not a professional critic, but civilians like myself are often invited to press screenings in an attempt to screw with the heads of stuffy movie reviewers by laughing and cheering and generally have a good time out at the movies.
I also am not ashamed to admit that I thought “Gigli” was hilarious. I saw it a year before it came out, before everyone was all burned out on “Bennifer.” Going into the movie cold, I was pleasantly surprised by it and didn’t have many negative things to say on the comment card; I remember saying that Jennifer Lopez’s wardrobe designer deserved an Oscar — homina! In fact, I didn’t even complain that Ben Affleck died at the end. Well, he died at the end of the version I saw. An overwhelming amount of test audience members didn’t like that ending, and it was changed so that now he doesn’t die. The movie bombed nonetheless. Way to go, test audiences!
And therein lies the paradox of test screening movies. I can understand that studios think filmmakers can’t see the forest for the trees and want a third party’s opinion regarding the finished film. But shouldn’t studio executives be that third party? They are, in point of fact. Yet they still rely on test audiences as another gauntlet a movie must pass through before it’s released. I’m simply not all that convinced the average movie-goer should have final cut. Yes, they’re the ones who are going to ultimately pay to see the movie, but really, these idiots have such bizarre tastes and a tenuous grasp on how films work, it shouldn’t be completely up to them. That being said, some of these so-called filmmakers can make pretty piss-poor creative decisions, too.
During the focus group for “The Core” after the movie was over, I was able to articulate why the original ending of the movie had been mind-blowingly stupid. The original ending was as follows: After restarting the planet’s core, Aaron Eckhart and Hillary Swank’s craft has spent all its fuel tunneling back through the earth’s crust and is stuck at the bottom of the ocean. For reasons completely beyond human understanding, a pod of whales creates a whirlpool that lifts the ship to the surface, where it can rendezvous with an aircraft carrier. What the stink?!
At any rate, because I used to enjoy shoddy disaster movies like this, and because I thought going to test screenings would be a good primer for becoming a filmmaker, I didn’t just tell the folks who’d organized the focus group that the ending blows and they should change it. Aware that my statements were being recorded for the suits at the studio, I suggested that they change the ending so that the whales simply alert the nearby aircraft carrier to the general location of the protags’ craft with their whalesong. Earlier in the film, it’s established that the whales like the heroes’ submersible for whatever reason, so it seemed to make sense that they’d sing to it at the bottom of the sea. Or something.
When I saw the movie again at the press screening a few months later, guess whose ending they used? I’ll give you a hint: mine. Setting aside the fact that I’ve seen “The Core” two more times than you, and the possibility that my ending could’ve been spitballed by anyone who’s not completely brain-dead, I take some pride in helping a bomb of a movie turn out a little less crappy. And, hey, Hillary Swank went on to make “Million Dollar Baby” and win another Academy Award. What’s more, Aaron Eckhart is being partially incinerated no thanks to Batman in “The Dark Knight,” now playing at a theater near you. Who knows where they’d be professionally if “The Core” had sucked more?
I haven’t been to a test screening in a long time. I think the last one was that Harrison Ford movie, “Firewall,” back in mid-’05 when I was again sporadically employed. Going to them is always a bit of a hassle. You have to get there at least an hour in advance, wait in line endlessly and deal with the ass-heads working for the marketing firm that has organized the screening. Having been a movie theater employee myself, I’ve always been amazed by how difficult those people make the process of herding a bunch of dimwits into an auditorium and showing them a movie.
Though I enjoyed watching movies well before their intended release dates and being in an audience that collectively had the clout to improve(?) the finished product, I wouldn’t be disappointed if the test screening process went away entirely. I’m not just saying that because I don’t have the free time to attend these things anymore. I think audiences don’t know art, but they know what they like. And what they like is sometimes dookie. The artistic value of Hollywood movies can be debatable. Nevertheless, if test audiences apparently know how to make a movie better than your average film director, why in the hell aren’t they out there making movies themselves?
-Brad Lohan
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