A New Opening

We’re doing our second test screening tomorrow night. It’s going to be another small group, probably around ten people. I also sent a copy of the latest cut to my cousin in Ohio, and she’s going to be holding a “non-industry” screening for her friends, who are all in their early twenties.

I don’t want to be over-confident, but hopefully there won’t be too many major notes. I’m sure there will be fixes -- there always are – but I’m hoping they will be small things. Fingers crossed.

We did have a big revelation last week. Barbara came back from a vacation in Germany, and suggested we needed more of a grabber opening. She’s absolutely right. This is something we’ve been feeling since writing the script, and we’ve reached the point where it finally needs to happen. If we don’t hook people with something, give ‘em a little blood and mystery, it’s definitely going to hurt our chances at festivals. We read a blog entry recently that said if the programmers aren’t hooked in the first five minutes, they won’t put the movie in their festival. From their perspective, they need something that will keep the press in the theater for the entire film.

To test this new beginning idea, we’re taking a scene from the big ending flashback and putting it right up front. It’s bloody, it’s mysterious, and it definitely should pique the audience’s interest. The problem is, it wasn’t really conceived as the movie’s opening. We can ADR some lines to have it make more sense, but it will probably never be a full-on scene. And it may end up giving too much of the story's revelations away. We’ve been kicking around some ideas for a simple, easy-to-shoot new scene for the beginning, something that would just involve Abby, but first we’re going to see what the response is tomorrow.



The unfortunate part is, Barbara always loved the opening shot. It was meant to be a slow-burn, "Boogie Nights"-esque tracking shot that introduces us to the house and the main character. We’ll probably have to lose that now, but making movies often involves killing your babies. It's always tough, but these sacrifices almost always lead to a better end product. And it yet again brings home the lesson that when you have tiny doubts about something, pay attention. It’s usually something that, sooner or later, you’ll end up having to fix in some way.