Demetri Martin Quotes

I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our test screenings incredibly useful.

I get a lot of inspiration from the audience feedback to our live shows.

It's rare that you cut out something that is really good. You screen all of it, and when the audience doesn't respond, you cut out whatever is holding the story down.

I need an audience to look at what I've done so I can understand it, so I can step back and watch them respond and figure out what they're understanding about what I'm trying to do and what they're confused about.

There have been times when I've written something and it goes out and it comes back in a letter from some kid as to what they think about it and I've taken their analysis to heart so much that I have taken up his thing. Writing what my audience is telling me to write.

I've got to the point where I just get on with it and the content of what I put on the records is determined from what I learn from the audience, from what works live, from what I want to hear when I go to a club or what I'd like to play when I get home.

What's great about having an audience is they can let you know what they don't think is funny, and you can just cut that out and keep trying.

I learn more from the audience than I can from anybody else. Not from what they write on the scorecards, but how they respond to the movie while they're watching it - where they laugh and where they react.

I feel so much feedback in a very profound way from the 10,000 people who are listening to me, watching me. I just get this deep sense of what works and what doesn't work.

Some people say I do it too much, but I'm always asking the artist questions. Sometimes - especially with new artists - you can see they're compromising in their mind. You see that look when they're listening to a vocal take and there's hesitation. And I'll be like, 'Are you sure you don't want to do this again?'

I can tell how I'm doing, and I can tell if the crowd is particularly dead.

You know, we're not on stage, we're not doing a play, so we don't have a relationship with the audience but going through that process and also just hearing how much people love the film, you feel like you do have a relationship with the audience.

I like test screenings. I like to see a movie with an audience of strangers. I think it tells you a lot.

There's nothing more instructive than the immediate response of an audience.

Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. There is no director who can direct you like an audience.

I think that if an audience is truly appreciative of a performance, they will show it. Sometimes though, there are little differences, and there are audiences that are very reserved even though they are enjoying the show.

What if Shakespeare had had a test audience for Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet?

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

Through years and years of playing to various audiences, what I've learned is - and I think quite a few actors will agree with me - we're not always the best judge of that audience's reactions or not. And we discover, to our amazement, at the end of the show, they bring the house down with applause, and we thought, 'No way tonight,' you know.

I added and deleted according to the audiences' response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience.

It's nice to get the feedback from a theater audience. It's a gas.

I feed off the audience a lot, their energy.

I played 'Rewind' so many times in the club to see which parts were working, see how the crowd reacted to it.

I know when I've written a good song when I can imagine the video. If I can't imagine the video straight away, I'm not gonna put it on my album.

The crowd is the crowd. You're gonna take them as an individual performer how you take them. The key is how do you learn from them. How do you use whatever is happening reaction-wise to get better.