Test audiences...

I want to talk briefly about something that is used in the film industry frequently and that is the use of the test audience.  What happens is studios and filmmakers take random people off the street and give them a free ticket to an upcoming, but unreleased, movie. The audience views the movie and then tells psychiatrists what they thought on little cards. More often than not it is not used the way it should be. Below are some examples.

1. During a preview of The Little Mermaid a child dropped a popcorn box while the song, "Part of Your World" played and became restless with needing to clean it up. Jeffrey Katzenberg took that as a sign that the song was boring and decided the song should be taken out. He relented though after a second screening of adults who enjoyed the song. Can you imagine the movie without the song?
2. The original play version of Little Shop of Horrors contains a sad ending. Everyone dies and the plant takes over the world. Test audiences hated Frank Oz for including it in the film version and so the filmmakers rewrote the ending and filmed it as the happy ending we get now. Oz regrets doing that.
3. Okay this one is fiction but I will include it as an example of how stupid the average audience member can be. In an episode of The Simpsons, Mel Gibson (who voices himself) directs and stars in a remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Everyone in Springfield loves it except Homer, who says it wasn't action-filled or violent enough to be a Gibson movie. Gibson takes his criticism as the only real one and changes the movie to suit Homer.

Sometimes test audiences help. Mel Brooks said he wanted to cut the now iconic 'walk this way' line from Young Frankenstein. He thought it was a cheap joke and didn't belong in the movie but allowed it to stay in for a test screening. The audience laughed harder at that five seconds than at any other point in the movie.

I guess what I am trying to say is every audience is different. Recently I saw my sister in a stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank. My sister told me that one of the cast members was upset because they didn't get many laughs.  Apparently an earlier audience laughed quite a bit. The audience I was in felt unsure if it was appropriate to laugh given the serious subject matter but they were far from bored by it.