Test Screenings

Test Screenings

A test screening is where production companies and studios view their film to an audience for free. They show the film to test the audience reactions. They then give a short questionnaire to the audience and ask questions like; do you like the ending? do you like the soundtrack? etc. The most important question is 'would you recommend this film to a friend?' If the film does not get at least 60% of the audience say yes, then something should be done to fix the problem. Lots of films will get changed if there is a low percentage whereas some actors and directors will fight their case. An example of this is Se7en where is was said to be a Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman film, so the audience were not expecting to see a violent, mystery crime thriller. This did not get a good audience reaction from a large part of the audience. One elderly woman left the cinema during the film and wrote over her questionnaire that she thought that the creators deserved to be shot. They had a very low percentage on the vital question so it was suggested that changes should be made. Brad Pitt and the Director both stood against this proposal and were able to keep the film as it is. A film that did have to be changed was The Little Shop of Horrors. This was already a famous theatre musical and there were many fans of the show. When the film was previewed it was all going very well; audiences were clapping and singing along until one of the main characters died. They were quiet for the rest of the film. They didn't get a very high percentage for the vital question and had to change the ending. This was difficult considering that had to create a whole new ending and a way to kill off the plant. The effects in the new ending were not as good and some of the shots didn't make as much sense. For example, Seymour's expressions changed from confident and heroic to distraught. This then got a better audience reaction because audiences like a happy ending most of the time. A lot of films have been changed from the original endings from their plays or books because they have sad endings. Test screenings are a good way to test reactions, but if the film is bad then the audience can write whatever they want on the internet for all to see. There are likely less test screenings around today because of this problem.

48h film prep.

Clearing the air-raid shelter for filming. Took about an hour.

Misleading Film Poster

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind misleading poster

I decided to create a misleading film poster for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The original genres of Eternal Sunshine are Drama, Romance and it also has strong elements of Sci-Fi. When making the poster I decided to try and make the film appear like a horror. I did this by starting of with looking at the darkest scenes of the film. I found 4 images that I used in my poster. I started with an image of Clem where she was very pale and had a frightened and sort of blank expression. I put this at the top of the poster because it was the boldest image. I then found an image of the character Joel, his expression shows that he is sad but he does look a bit scared as well. I used a dark picture of the 2 characters close both looking concerned in a dark location. I made sure that in all the images they were wearing the same clothes so that it is set in a small amount of time. The last image was of an unknown character with his face blanked out, this is a disturbing looking image that can easily relate to horror. I then put dark red rectangles in to keep some of the images separate and clear. I then used a tall font for the title and dark red text. Underneath I put the tag line which is ‘Clear your mind’. This is actually one of the tag lines for the film, but in the context of this poster it sounds more creepy and odd. I put this text in grey so that is would blend into the background a bit. I used a different font for the tag line; it is also tall but less square-like. I then used the same font and colour for the 2 actor names. I only put 2 names to represent the main characters so that more was not given away about other characters and so that it was no obvious who the man with the blank face was. The overall poster is quite dark with a lot of black, but some parts are really bright to make a good contrast (such as Clem’s hair and character’s faces).