What Happens When There's No Audience Physically At a Test Screening?

Steaming has changed the way everything in Hollywood happens, including test screenings. It feels kind of obvious, but when you test a movie for Netflix, they have a whole system in place to see how it will play at home.

That's because that's where their consumer base likes to consume their content. But on a recent episode of Matt Belloni's The Town , director Paul Feig talked through what it's like to test-screen a movie for streaming.

Let's dive in.

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The Room Is the Point

In the full episode of The Town, Paul Feig talks about how he actually loves most test screening processes. He likes seeing how people react in the theater, and looks for specific physical signals to see if they're enjoying his work.

Are people leaning forward? Are they covering their eyes? Are they jumping? Are they checking their phones? That's the data that's telling him the truth in real time.

But streaming removes all of that.

What You Get Instead

When you're test screening for a streaming release, the feedback mechanism flips completely. You go from real-time response to lag-time behavioral data.

And as I am sure you know, the major question is: Did they finish it?

Aside from that, I've done some research and found streaming tests, which occur at home, check things like whether people dropped off, rewound anything, and how long it took them to press play after it was recommended.

And they also record themselves watching it, so you can see all the things they do during it. As Feig recounts to the podcast, you can see cats walking in front of the screen or people making a sandwich, or all the distracted watching I'm sure we're guilty of at home.

But can a filmmaker really learn anything from those kinds of tests?

You're not really reading the room anymore. Instead, you're dealing with feedback from people who had other things to do. That can't really help a filmmaker understand anything, because the engagement level is not on par with what it would be in a movie theater.

Why This Matters for Filmmakers

The broader lesson here isn't about test screenings specifically. And it can't be throwing away these streaming test screenings, because the reality of the situation will be that some people will only see your film that way.

Some of this is like radical acceptance.

Theatrical and streaming don't just distribute films differently. They measure success differently, which means they incentivize different creative decisions.

A streaming test is going to weigh your first act very heavily; that's where the drop-off risk is highest. A theatrical test is going to care a lot more about whether the word of mouth holds into weekend two.

It sounds dumb, but you want to build a great film that has no drop-off. But in lieu of that, you should learn how to pitch based on this information.

Like if you're pitching a Netflix, don't say you're building a story with a slow burn first act that pays off in the third. Emphasize the big moments early on that will hook people and sustain that.

I think this info is just good to know about for filmmakers because it can affect the speed of the edit and even the way scenes get ordered. It's something to keep in mind as you break your projects.

Summing It All Up

Feig has made enough movies to understand which signals are worth following and which ones to ignore. The directors who get chewed up by test screening feedback are usually the ones who don't have that filter yet. When in doubt, trust your gut and maybe even get your friends to watch to see how they react.

It's clear that the platform is going to shape how people see a movie, and even how they dissect what's working and what's not.

That's what Feig is really getting at. And it's worth thinking about long before you get anywhere near a test screening.

Let me know your point of view in the comments.