Test Screening #3

I dropped off our latest cut at the Sundance office yesterday. If I thought our odds were slim, that feeling was confirmed when I walked into the lobby and saw crates – literally stacks of crates – teetering behind desk, each one filled to the brim with DVDs. In the time I dropped our DVD off, two other indie filmmakers came to turn in their opuses. It was, all in all, quite an intimidating and humbling experience.



But there wasn’t time to think about that too much, because last night was our third test screening. It was kind of an important one for us – we needed to see if the re-shoots we did last week worked, if the new structure for Act 3 made sense, and most importantly, if the second test screening reactions were a fluke.

Thankfully, it went pretty well. People jumped several times, they laughed at appropriate places, and they really seemed to get into the third act. There were notes – there are always notes, always – but this was definitely the screening that confirmed the movie is working, and we’re close to the finish line.

One example of the power of editing: in the last screening, people hated our spiritual advisor character. They didn’t believe him, didn’t think he was funny. This screening was completely the opposite. A couple people even selected his scenes as their favorite. Just goes to show how much you can change things by lifting lines, tweaking performances, and changing audio.

The great thing to see over and over is how much people respond to our main character. They love her performance, and they really identify with what she’s going through. She did such a good job carrying the movie, especially considering probably half her scenes don’t even have dialogue. Without Abby (the actress), the story wouldn’t work nearly as well.

Also great: the re-shoots were helpful and worth the effort. And there are several scares and story twists that have played well for everyone. So there are large chunks that continue to work.

The big issue, however, is people still think the first act is too slow. We were talking last night about how to address this, and it’s difficult. I jokingly said the movie is a house of cards, but it’s kind of true. Each scene has key pieces of information, so it’s not as easy as lifting things out. What we probably need to do is go in and shave a lot of the individual scenes down. But we need to be careful not to make it so fast that people can’t settle into the beginning. It’s a delicate issue, and one we haven’t quite cracked yet.

But honestly, that’s the biggest thing. We have notes for other sections, mostly about clarity and pacing, but they’re fairly small. It feels like people want to like the movie, and 85% of it is there. We just need to push ourselves over the next few weeks, and get to that final 15.



THOUGHTS FROM SCREENING #3:

“Solid horror film. Good editing. I jumped several times.”

“Very entertaining, scary, and engaging. Love Abigail Mittel as Charlotte.”

“I feel like I’ve seen this movie already a lot. I grew tired of the location. The twist was not bad. Good acting, well edited, but I might not recommend it.”

“Good. Kept me in the seat, let me search for clues.”

“Very solid! Enjoyed it a lot. Like that it played off our assumptions from other films (“What Lies Beneath,” etc.)”

“Solid set-ups and pay-offs, well-constructed.”

“Suspenseful, good concept, maybe one too many scenes with the mystery trilobites.”

“I thought it started off slow but the twist was very surprising. Witty dialogue. Some things didn’t quite make sense but on the whole, entertaining and interesting.”