I’m reading Mel Brooks’s autobiography, “All About Me!”, and loved this section about “Young Frankenstein” so much that I’m going to quote it in full. Here’s Mel:
The first cut we put together for a test screening was two hours and twenty-two minutes long. That was pretty long for one of my films. “The Producers” was only eighty-eight minutes. While “Young Frankenstein” ran long, I didn’t want to leave out anything that might possibly catch fire with an audience. I screened it at the Little Theater on the Twentieth Century Fox lot for people who worked on the lot. The theater was packed, and we didn’t get all the laughs we were aiming for. It went well, but not well enough for me. It was just too long.
When the picture was over, I got up in front of the audience and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen a two-hour-and-twenty-two minute failure. In less than three weeks from today, I want you back here to see a ninety-five-minute smash hit movie. I want every one of you back!”
Editing was both easy and difficult. Easy because when something was supposed to get a laugh and it didn’t, I simply cut it. Difficult because I was in love with too many moments and had to cut them for the good of the overall film. Sometimes, you have to kill your darlings….
Of course, it was more than three weeks later when I reassembled most of that same audience at the Little Theater. It was actually closer to three months later. But I had a cut that was pretty damn good and wanted to show it. It went like gangbusters! Every single scene in the picture worked. The audience not only laughed their heads off, but there was a palpable feeling of sweet sadness when the picture ended.
I love what Mel describes here: He’s using audience feedback to understand what works and what doesn’t, and then is willing to use that feedback to make his work better — even when it means getting rid of something he’s proud of. Pay attention to what your audience says — they might just make your work better, too.
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That photo of a red pen comes via Unsplash and Kelly Sikkema.