Test screenings & previews

Sometimes I was worried about the humor. For example, for this shot, I asked me if it works or not. It was a big relief during the first test screening, because everybody laughed. It's too bad that Brad Dourif has to disappear so quickly. I'd have loved to have seen him go on for the rest of the film.

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The guy who did this explosion, he made the explosion of Star Wars. He was a specialist of the explosion of miniature. He was so good. He has a book and you can choose the... Choose the color... - Exactly. There is a story about the death of General Perez. At the beginning, it was a big deal. He was sucked by a hole on the spaceship. In fact, I kept the idea for the ending with the newborn, the new alien. I proposed to the studio a very cheap death for General Perez - I love this scene - but the studio didn't like it and they wanted to cut it. I proposed to Tom Rothman, I said: "OK. You have to ask the audience for the next test screening." It was in Las Vegas, if you remember. By luck, the audience loved this scene on the screening, and they saved my life, they saved this scene. We kept it because the audience is right. The shot was quite funny afterwards - we cut it here - afterwards he kept looking at his brain and then fainting in a very very humorous way. That was very nice. - It's a little bit too funny. But I love that. I remember, Sigourney didn't like it. I can't avoid humor, because I love it so much.

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It was a bit longer, this scene. - We had an additional hole. Exactly, an additional hole. You can see something strange on the hole, because... You can see something strange, because he's grabbed by the feet by the alien through a hole which doesn't exist here. He had to walk for an additional 10m or something to get there. It was too long. That was one of the remarks we had from the first test screening. They made, if I remember, something like 100 remarks. I remember, sometimes we were defiant, but we were pretty upset. And sometimes we said "They're right." And sometimes we said "They're right." We were very upset at first, but looking at the questions which were asked, we realized that, each time, it was somewhere where... we thought it could go like that. In the time we had for doing it, we thought it was OK. As we could have more time, that was... Most of the notes, we found an answer. We never really followed the propositions we had, but we found the creative answer to the question asked. I think that was what the studio was waiting for us to do. But it was a good lesson for me and for us. Since that time, for each film I'm cutting I'm organizing previews, which is not in the French tradition. For Amélie we did some test screenings. In fact, I copy the answer from Hollywood, but the big difference is: I have the final cut, I can choose. The difference is on the use you do from the answers. Exactly. But we don't have to complain. - I love this idea. This is a simple shot that was hard. That head was long and heavy, and trying to keep it smooth and even and not drag across Michael's face, and make it all the way up to that opening in the chest. You always said that this cut, the final cut, was your cut. We did it with the production notes and... If the studio would ask me to make a director's cut, I would say "That's mine." Yeah, that would be a problem, because we're very happy with what we have.

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Jonathan Lynn

This is the only scene in which we made substantial changes after our first test screening. In the original script, Oz, towards the end of the scene, made a long declaration of love to Cynthia. We had never questioned this, but when we saw it with an audience, we realized that it happened too soon. It was only his second meeting with her.

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Jonathan Lynn

It was also not very good structurally because although Oz is in love with Cynthia, she doesn't realize it until much later in the movie when they're in the parking lot on the phone to Jimmy Tedeschi. And we felt in this scene the audience really slipping away from us. So before we did our second test screening, we simply...

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Jonathan Lynn

We chopped big pieces out of the scene and recut it and restructured it a little. And the scores in the test screening went up enormously to such an extent that it was clear that the film was going to be a hit. It was very satisfying for us to have seen the problem, diagnosed it correctly, and as always, afterwards you think, why didn't we see it first?

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in a negative way, a negativity between characters. It's meant to be them either busting on each other or in tension yelling at one another. It actually has, it's counterintentional. It actually alienates you from the character. And there were about four lines of dialogue and after the first test screening, Tom picked them out. We noticed that Benji wasn't resonating the way he usually does.

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Well, we are at the point in the movie where everybody, when they feel the energy stop in the first test screening, they all got up to go pee. Exactly. And that is something we were very conscious of. Yes, exactly. We watch how many people go to the bathroom, when they go to the bathroom. And that tells us that something in the story is, that was a little punch in by Annie Hamilton. Yeah, I love that punch in. But also, this was a scene that was shot quite late in the day when we realized we need to recontextualize the white widow and the fact that, you know,

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And, uh, and in our first test, one of the guys in the focus group said, what was it that scene? He said, either, either make it longer or cut it out. Yeah. We were, we were again being subtle and we were alluding to things that were going to show up in part two and really what the audience wanted at this point. And what we really, what we really realized we were obligated to do is let's clear all this up. Yeah. And explain what happened with the keys and. Yep. Yeah. And, and of course the journey of the keys is.

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MGM were very leery about it. I mean, because this is in a box set with a whole bunch of other MGM horror films of the period, the viewers will be able to notice that all of them have been messed around in pre-production and post-production. They've changed directors, they've cut footage, they've dropped footage, they've previewed it. This was previewed at 80 minutes and released at 60. And I think it basically boils down to...

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way of selling the film at that time. And there are snips of scenes in that trailer which you don't see in the finished film. I think we have a sense that when they named the date of this film as 1934, it obviously sat on the shelf for a while before it was released, while they were maybe fiddling around with it. It was previewed at 80 minutes, released at 60. And here's some prime lurking. And here's where...

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Jim Piddock

during the slower mood-setting scenes. Perhaps now I can begin to tell you about the plot of the movie as originally envisaged by the filmmakers. You see, quite a different movie. The filmmakers' cut was previewed for a test audience, but after the preview, the studio insisted on certain changes which were rather ham-handedly implemented. Rather an old story in Hollywood, I'm afraid. So what you see here is, to no small degree, the result of studio bastardization.

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Jim Piddock

Lost for the moment, though. Quite infuriating. I was privileged to be at that preview screening 16 years back. Saw the film as it was meant to be seen. I was bowled over, quite frankly. Well, then when I saw the movie again in a commercial cinema, as you see it now, I was stunned. I'd brought several friends, having sung the movie to the skies, and I sat there and watched in horror as the thing played out, completely recut. It was appalling.

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I always thought this was a hard scene for you, Lea, because you had to watch her boyfriend be this obnoxious and not stop him, and at the same time, let us know that you didn't agree with what he was doing. It was a hard part, 'cause it was both... I had to do both things. Remain sympathetic and yet be the bad guy because you're gonna be rooting for Mary Stuart's character. Now, this moment was the first big moment in the test screening, because when he picked the dollar up... You'll see what he's gonna do. He reveals that he took the dipstick, drops it in the can, and that's that. Well, I thought, "Okay." The audience cheered for, like, 30 seconds, and I thought, "Oh, my God. They're with this guy right away." They were already ready with this guy. They liked him immediately. And that's the first clue, you know, that you got a shot.

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A big deal in the test screening. I remember people loved that. But this wasn't a reshoot. Eric's hair just looks different to you, but we didn't reshoot this. Bet you a million bucks. How much? - A million.

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Now, Stallone's got a missing daughter. We can talk about this more, but the missing daughter element never really... I mean, we ended up shooting something where he actually finds his daughter, but we cut it out because it was dragging the movie and with great actress Elizabeth Ruscio. But when you come to the sex scene, everyone in the test audience thought Sandra Bullock was going to be Stallone's daughter. So they're all like pulling their hair out and groaning. So we had to do some ADR to...

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which is generated by, let's say, what today would be artificial intelligence to tell them how to react to an emergency. So it's gone through every profession. That glow rod beat where he uses the glow rod on a civilian was always another great moment with a test audience. Like, okay, they're starting to get the movie now.

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had to show this film to a test audience, right? So we never had to... These sequences could actually afford to be bare. Like, you know, Elias walking through the room, the way we're using the overlap of the dialogue. I mean, this was all something... I remember constructing this at a visual level one night in my editing room. Like, the sequence was not quite working.

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I think what happened is that while we're... Well, you obviously are very involved in the script. You know, as we said, some of those themes were actually introduced early on because they had to be in the film itself. But there's also this space leading up to the mix where there is no test screening. Ultimately, we're just going with this movie. There's no distraction. There's no moment of panic.

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that she must be feeling. The first screening I went to after the film was released, the audience was... It got a big laugh when Parker and Longbaugh go in and we see all the women in the brothel. Oh, people in the test audience, you know how you have them little cards that says, what's your favorite scene? I can't tell you the number of cards that said, when he smacks that whore on the ass. That's a scene to some people. You spend two years working on a movie and that's a scene.

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It was sticking huge needles into chicken joints. Because my brother had described to me the sound he heard when his wife got her first spinal. And I thought, well, that's gotta be in there. This is a scene that I personally used to get on your case to cut out. I'm glad you left it in. After the first test screening, you won me over. I think you won everyone over. Everyone in the world wanted it out. This scene was not in the script. Geoffrey Lewis... Did he just disappear after they left the brothel?

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Alan K. Rode

non-sequential, non-linear, episodic vignettes to tell the story of the heist. So the killing was filmed copying Lionel White's narrative structure. So everyone was pleased until the film was previewed in Huntington Park.

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We shot a lot of specific things. The robot gets crushed and destroyed. And then the nerds run up to the front porch and get manhandled by the jocks. Gilbert gets thrown down on the ground. And it was very reminiscent for me of real stuff that I experienced in high school. But when we previewed the film, the audiences were so bummed out by it that they couldn't laugh anymore for the next 15 minutes. So we had to tone it down, take it out.

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Bill Paxton

You could tell when we started screening the film... We didn't screen it in the way they do now. We never did a test screening. But at the premiere, let's say, which is the first time I saw the film with an audience, which is unthinkable these days, we could tell the audience really liked Hudson, really connected. I like this scene cos, again, it's the transfer of power. Sigourney has made Burke as a guy she can't trust. Ripley has figured out Burke's agenda, and she's created enough of a bond with Hicks that she knows she can get him to do what needs to be done, take command even though he's a corporal. Having been in the army myself in the '70s, Jim really nailed army life for the military, and he was never in the military. Jim wasn't. - That's how guys acted.

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And it was always better than what we had planned. So that was good. Did you do any like test screens with, like a test screening with him and Robert Sean Leonard at all to see how they played off each other? Or did you just? No, no, we just had to make it work. Yeah, just cross your fingers and hope the chemistry's there. Yeah, yeah. And this was, it was Bobby's first movie, but not his,

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Now, there's a really cool little lucky bit here with the hubcap. Watch this. Yeah, it flies off. Boink! Right over camera. Right. It was a mistake, isn't it? I think you should say you planned that. Ah, yes. Life is so kind. When they previewed this picture, the audience's most favorite thing was... Was coming up here. ...was getting hit by the... The melding man getting hit by the car. Right here. And the MPAA wanted us to cut it out of the picture.

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uh... fight that night because we were going out to a preview or something and i said i can't think of what to put in the beginning of this movie and he went he wrote any and was something that he and we've had this kind of scratch track out of the out of the synthesizer that we previewed with on you know and early previews so you know that was one of those things where the movie was definitely talking now i think is some of his greatest work that he that he had that he had in the movie you know he just went away and

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scarabs coming up here. What they were is little white ping-pong balls. So that's what the first preview audiences saw, is a little white ping-pong ball going up there. It looked like he was playing the lotto. But the preview audiences seemed to love the characters and the story so much that no one walked out, which we found really amazing, because our first preview screening had no special effects in it. And by the second one, these were all ping-pong balls. Thousands of ping-pong balls coming... cascading down there. Surrounding Beni, as if he was going to be eaten by a giant...

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Simon West

Now this scene was one that was actually originally cut out. It was one of two scenes that I cut out of Alex's apartment in Venice. But after the one and only test screening that we had, the audience were actually asked for more of Alex in the film, so I reinstated this one. The other scene involved Lara coming in in the middle of Alex having a poker game with some of his more disreputable friends.

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tone and length is somewhat challenging. Yeah, because it can go from being dramatic to melodramatic if you're not careful. There's another place that, like so many others, that Sylvester is just kicking ass. When we previewed the movie, one of the cards, we showed it to 500 people and only one person mentioned it, but they said they noticed that there's a...

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didn't have in the cut for a bit. And what was really fun is we previewed it and people in the audience were whispering his line as if they knew the script. And we said, all right, we got to put the joke back in. We got to put the joke back in because they're saying it. And it worked because when we put it back in, the audience laughed even harder because he's giving voice. Maybe you guys could talk about...

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