Quote from: BiggyMac04 on Jan 19, 2012, 08:52:21 PM
nooooooo. damn i wanted to go hella bad. its in nor cal though. the better part so it might be differnet?
These things are unfortunately always the same. They go like this:
1. You wait outside the theater in a line while the attendants keep telling you "Oh, they're just cleaning up, it'll just be five more minutes." A half an hour later...
2. You finally get inside. Attendants walk around passing out little bundles of paper and baby pencils. You fill out a Non-disclosure agreement in most cases.
3. Some studio shill walks out, all smiles, and briefly introduces himself and the film.
4. The film starts, usually a rough cut with a temporary score and unfinished visual effects.
5. When the lights go up, you fill out a questionnaire that includes questions along the lines of "Did you think the movie moved too slowly?" or "Were you confused by anything in the movie? Please explain."
6. Everyone leaves after turning in their questionnaires, unless a focus group is being held, in which case a certain number of the audience stays behind to talk about the film. Here's where it gets
really depressing. Say the film is a really good, dark, sci-fi film that is clearly aiming to be more than just some shlocky b-picture (like, say, the original cut of 2007's The Invasion). The studio shill will ask the audience "What did you think of this or that?" and the some mouthbreather will raise his or her hand and say "I didn't like it, I thought it was really confusing and stupid, and it went on too long" or "It wasn't exciting enough, parts of it were boring." The inverse happens if the film is some crappy comedy or action picture: everyone in the audience will love it and say "I could, like, see there being like a whole series with this!" And then there is usually one member of the audience who raises their hand and completely contradicts everyone else (usually me, alas) and gets funny looks and pretty much ignored by the studio shill. They tape all this and then take it back to the studio.
It sucks.