David F. Sandberg, the director of Shazam, lifts the curtain of what Hollywood movie test screenings are. In this hilarious but very helpful video, you will find how feedback from these events may affect the way a film is edited and marketed.
In the video, you will learn who attends test screenings and what they actually see. I thought they show a relatively final version of the movie, when in reality, it can be a very rough cut without sound effects and with temporary music. Sometimes, there can be parts of the film without any VFX. In other cases, instead of watching a cut version of the scene, you might see a screen with a text explaining the scene is missing. Sometimes, based on a single weird piece of subjective feedback, a movie can undergo a drastic change in the editing. Test screenings are a very slippery slope, but production studios hold them anyway.
It's not uncommon for us, as filmmakers, to get negative feedback from audiences that do not understand our work. Do you think holding test screenings, like Hollywood movies do, can help low-budget productions make better videos? Let us know what you think in the the comments below.
If this was the best 6 minutes of my day today I won't be disappointed. This video was enlightening, informative, and quite entertaining.
I also was a little hesitant, but just like you, I've watched it till the end with contentment.