Market Research

by Abel Ferrara

Market research is key to the LA process. An independent contractor, whose name I forgot, got paid a shitload of money to run what are called test screenings, which involved going into the San Fernando Valley, rounding up a theaterful of high school kids, showing them the movie, and then having them write out answers to a bunch of questions. From that they come up with a score, 100 being the ideal, which I'm sure even Star Wars didn't get. They randomly pick fifteen or twenty of these kids to keep after and further cross-examine, seeking some deeper truth. Then they go back into the editing room and recut the films around these notes. No bullshit, almost every film coming out of Hollywood is recut around notes given by sixteen-year-olds.

6S

Abel Ferrara is an American filmmaker and actor. His six sentences are excerpted from Scene, A Memoir.