The Telegraph UK: My Week - 'Who really calls the shots in Hollywood?'
My Week: Who really calls the shots in Hollywood?
By Olivia Williams
12:15PM BST 25 Jun 2013
In her monthly column, Olivia Williams discovers a powerful force at work in Hollywood: the test audience.
I was summoned back for a SECOND lot of re-shoots on Seventh Son - it seems that my character, that has great significance in Joseph Delaney’s fantasy novels but was somewhat sidelined in the script, has proven popular with test audiences. So I was happy to fly back to Vancouver and recreate my pig farmer/witch to please the Good People of Glendale, California, who are frequently asked to fill in 40 page questionnaires asking, on a scale of one to ten, how much they care about each character, or whether they find the ending a) satisfying b) hilarious or c) a bit of a downer.
Those good people REALLY cared about my pig farmer/witch, but my tough Atlanta cop? Not so much.... thus I was less enthusiastic about reshooting the ending for my other movie in the works, and I’ve gone off the half-witted people of Glendale.
We can get all hoity-toity about test audiences ‘dumbing down’ works of art, but it’s a tradition that resulted in improved audience attendance for King Lear for about two hundred years. In 1681, Nahum Tate wrote a much perkier version - Cordelia doesn’t die, gets it on with Edgar and they live happily ever after. In 1765, Samuel Johnson found Shakespeare’s ending c) A total downer, and remarked that the audience would be much better pleased by the “final triumph of persecuted virtue.” It is certainly the only context in which I think Samuel Johnson would have felt the groove with his homies in Glendale, Ca.
For every job I do I have to fill in a form for the insurers. For my next movie, Maps to the Stars, I answered their badly drafted questions as best I could in the tiny space provided.
Q: “It is Likely/unlikely that I will pilot an aircraft or watercraft, ride a motorcycle, race any type of vehicle or watercraft, or participate in any individual or group, sporting, recreational or athletic activities (describe):
A: “It is likely that I will participate in walking, cooking, sleeping, cycling, hide and seek, rowing (Regent’s Park Boating Lake), watching television, tapestry (mind that needle!), sex (in a group no larger than two with a person henceforward referred to as “husband”), acting.”
There was another question: “Does anyone in your family have a life threatening disease or illness? [state relationship]” I assumed this was to discriminate against those suffering from hereditary conditions. No. It’s so the insurance company does not have to cover you if your [state Relation] dies and you ask for compassionate leave to attend the funeral. Nice.
source
By Olivia Williams
12:15PM BST 25 Jun 2013
In her monthly column, Olivia Williams discovers a powerful force at work in Hollywood: the test audience.
I was summoned back for a SECOND lot of re-shoots on Seventh Son - it seems that my character, that has great significance in Joseph Delaney’s fantasy novels but was somewhat sidelined in the script, has proven popular with test audiences. So I was happy to fly back to Vancouver and recreate my pig farmer/witch to please the Good People of Glendale, California, who are frequently asked to fill in 40 page questionnaires asking, on a scale of one to ten, how much they care about each character, or whether they find the ending a) satisfying b) hilarious or c) a bit of a downer.
Those good people REALLY cared about my pig farmer/witch, but my tough Atlanta cop? Not so much.... thus I was less enthusiastic about reshooting the ending for my other movie in the works, and I’ve gone off the half-witted people of Glendale.
We can get all hoity-toity about test audiences ‘dumbing down’ works of art, but it’s a tradition that resulted in improved audience attendance for King Lear for about two hundred years. In 1681, Nahum Tate wrote a much perkier version - Cordelia doesn’t die, gets it on with Edgar and they live happily ever after. In 1765, Samuel Johnson found Shakespeare’s ending c) A total downer, and remarked that the audience would be much better pleased by the “final triumph of persecuted virtue.” It is certainly the only context in which I think Samuel Johnson would have felt the groove with his homies in Glendale, Ca.
For every job I do I have to fill in a form for the insurers. For my next movie, Maps to the Stars, I answered their badly drafted questions as best I could in the tiny space provided.
Q: “It is Likely/unlikely that I will pilot an aircraft or watercraft, ride a motorcycle, race any type of vehicle or watercraft, or participate in any individual or group, sporting, recreational or athletic activities (describe):
A: “It is likely that I will participate in walking, cooking, sleeping, cycling, hide and seek, rowing (Regent’s Park Boating Lake), watching television, tapestry (mind that needle!), sex (in a group no larger than two with a person henceforward referred to as “husband”), acting.”
There was another question: “Does anyone in your family have a life threatening disease or illness? [state relationship]” I assumed this was to discriminate against those suffering from hereditary conditions. No. It’s so the insurance company does not have to cover you if your [state Relation] dies and you ask for compassionate leave to attend the funeral. Nice.
source