Crisper screenplay and Test Screenings – Need of the hour

by Raven and MovieCrow

The assistants at the kodambakkam studios are reporting that Thuppakki is close to 2 hours 50 minutes as Tamil movie industry is hotly debating what should be the ideal length of a movie. Let's take a look at some options for upcoming Tamil movies to maximize the outcome.

Gone are the days when the creative process of film-making started at the writer’s desk and ended at the editor’s desk. The film-makers need to come out of clichés and beliefs that people expect five songs and four fight sequences in a film. If you can tell the same story in 2 hours, why stretch it to 3 hours?  

Post Release Editing is becoming a norm!

It has become a common practice for directors and producers to trim the length of the movie after the release of a movie. The recently released Thaandavam, Billa 2 Mugamoodi and Maattrraan have all been trimmed or scenes added post release. In Tamil Nadu, only around 40% of the screens are digital. Hence, this process is not organized nor hassle-free especially for physical prints -- the theatre operators taking the scissors in their hands and increasingly performing the role of an editor is scary.

Movie Length Time not to exceed 2 hour 30 minutes

The running length of the movie is very critical. Unless it is absolutely necessary for the plot, a film should not stretch beyond 150 minutes comments a leading editor. The current social media generation has short attention span and will crucify the movie the moment the narration lags or boredom sets in. Hence, the debutante directors are opting for shorter versions to be on the safer side - Pizza has a running length of little over two hours and upcoming movie, Aarohanam, is around 90 minutes.

Test Screening -- Need of the Hour?

The better option would be for film-makers to conduct test screenings similar to Hollywood, where almost 75% of the top 200 films are test screened before they are locked. Test screening is a marketing concept (similar to focus groups) of identifying a random sampling of people from all age groups not associated with the production team to watch the movie. They use the feedback from test screenings to make necessary adjustments to suit the target audience. This process is methodical and sometimes help iron out the kinks.

Downsides of Test Screening

Such test screenings invite sharp reactions from viewers. Many directors hate this practice, fearing the effects of market research taking over creative art. Popular director Woody Allen has avoided it like a plague. The common argument is that the market oriented activities will only service existing markets, rather than trying to create new markets, or let the art create a market. Case in point is Bala's Sethu, which  was screened to distributors for almost 6 months and almost everybody rejected it as commercial unviable. After finding a limited release, Sethu went on to become a big hit creating a market for tragedy movies which is still in vogue even after a decade. 

So, one must not forget that film-making is an art as well as business. Any film, irrespective of the end result, is a director’s brain-child -- making a mince-meat out of director's vision is not good for movie industry. 

Sample Test Screening Survey of Natural Born Killers released in 1984