Barry Levinson Quotes

It's a big part of what we do - we test our movies extensively. I'm always there myself. It's sometimes difficult to sit through, especially if it's a version of the movie that's not working particularly well.

You've got to keep your finger on the pulse of what your audience is thinking, and know what they'll accept from you.

I'm the biggest proponent of test screenings now. There's two ways to face test screenings. For dramas, I don't know if I would rely on them as much, although I still think you need them, because you're making a movie for an audience at the end of the day. But with comedy... You could go through a script or anything I ever worked on, where you go, "This is hilarious," and you put it in front of people and you get nothing. And then the other side of it, is something you're like, "I think this is really stupid," and it gets a giant laugh.

I think testing films are a great tool. And I think showing them to people that you value their opinion is important, but once you give over to what reviewers think, that's tricky. You don't know what their agenda is; it's so subjective. You have got to make sure you are asking someone's opinion who you know.

Different reactions while film test screening doesn't mean even the audience thinks ambiguity is a bad thing. But if you're asking them right away to start checking things off, they don't know what to do. I think at their best, it applies to when the audience knows what it is. Then, when they say, "Oh, well, I thought it was too boring in blah-blah-blah part," then you better pay attention to it. It's like going for the hamburger. Better be the good hamburger I went for.

I need to know who the audience are in any particular play. It's no good forgetting that they're there.

But you can't really know your audiences so well.

A lot of filmmakers hate testing movies. I love it because it's an audience medium. The biggest problem has been the prevalence of all these Internet sites. It's almost impossible to have a test screening without it leaking out on the Internet.

When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.

You know, we have our own audience, and it's not like - they just know we're not going to do certain things.

Anything that's memorable about a movie is often what a test audience will object to because they're being asked to be experts. They just compare the film they finished watching to all of the other films that they've seen.

You never really know until you put the movie in front of an audience. I am a big advocate of screenings, which are getting harder and harder to do nowadays.

On the craft level, writing for children is not so different from writing for adults. You still have to have a story that moves forward. You still have to have the tools of the trade down. The difference arises in the knowledge of who you're writing for. This isn't necessary true of writing for adults.

You learn quite a bit about your film from test screening audiences.

Sometimes I go to a test screening and look at the audience in line, and I start to go, "Okay, I bet this is going to work, and this isn't going to work." It's weird, but just going and facing the music and putting it out before a crowd, even before it starts playing, that exercise of putting it up on a screen for people makes you realize things even before it starts rolling. It's really weird. I've heard other people say that, too.

The audience is never wrong.

I don't aim it at anybody specific, I don't aim my characters to make old people laugh or young people or professionals or blue collar, just whatever I think is going to be funny and it just so happens that.

I always take the audience into account.

In truth, I never consider the audience for whom I'm writing. I just write what I want to write.

I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.

The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

I think any time you can go after an audience that isn't built in, that's the job.

The audience, that's who I care about.

I think test screenings with an audience are useful because they have no dog in the fight, they just say how they feel.