Test screenings have been around since 1928, when Harold Lloyd is credited to have broken his films in to 12 components and charted the audience laughs against all each section and re-edited them. This method helped him outgross Chaplin and Buster Keaton in box-office receipts all through the 1920s.
Tests have recently received a bad rap when studio executives tried to use them to get their way over the filmmakers creative control. Recently however, they’ve gotten a great resurgence as filmmakers themselves would like to get early audience feedback to better unfurl their story.
Distributors and sales agents use the data from that to surgically market films to the right demographic rather than the spray and pray method.
We’ve listed what we think are the 3 biggest advantages in test screening your films and shows today.
1. Knowing the battleground.
The ultimate test of your film will be with the audience. Knowing what a smaller set of them thinks about it becomes really helpful. Audiences like to be vocal about what they think, and in today’s world of social media, bad word of mouth from the opening week audience can mean disastrous results. Depending on what they think, they would either recommend or not recommend a film to someone. Now imagine if you take their views into consideration without the fear of their word spreading, you can easily counter it before the film releases for the world.
A great example in this respect is First Blood (1982) which had an initial ending of Sylvester Stallone getting killed in the end. Test audiences did not like the ending at all. It was then re shot to have him survive. In addition to it being received better, this gave the studio an opportunity to create one of the industry’s best franchisees.
2. Budgeting.
Let’s face it, budgets are tight. But once a film is made, what if test audiences do not approve of it? Reshoots cost money. Instead of trying to arrange funds after a film doesn’t fare well with a test audience. Include it as part of your budget. Trust us your financiers are going to love that you’re planning to test your film.
If the screening goes very well, they can just allocate the budget to marketing. There is no downside of having a test screening line item on your budget.
A perfect example for this would be Final Destination where the audience did not receive the death of the 2 main characters very well. This led to a reshoot worth 2 million dollars where Kerr Smith’s character gets killed off finally. Now big studios can afford this. For the rest of us, we recommend testing early and leaving some leeway for changes in the budget.
3. Sell your film easier.
Filmmakers might think of their film as art but sales agents and distributors are the ones who will ultimately try to sell your art and get it to the screens it deserves. Unless you have a Nolan level of past successes, they not going to solely rely on your word.
Here is where the data really comes in handy. If you want to release your US film in Germany, you can test the film out with a small set of people there and provide that engagement and demographic data to a German distributor. This data then gives him the confidence to set your film up for success in the targeted region.
Many film makers are against the idea of test screening films, but studios, distributors and sales agents rely on them to forecast the success or develop counter strategies. In some cases it also helps make something good a little better like Jaws or Coyote Ugly.
You can use Indee.tv to run your own test screenings. Invite a few members from your social network or professional group you’re part of to watch your film. Indee’s tools let you track their engagement with various scenes of the video and you can ask them to rate and comment on various aspects of your films.
One rule of test screening is to ensure close friends or a film industry audience isn’t part of your test. The results from them, skew your results.
Get in touch with us to learn more about test screenings. Leave us a comment below or shoot us a note at testscreen@indee.tv.
