The Audience Is Smarter Than Screenwriters Think They Are by John Truby Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

say you're a viewer at someone's
premiere and you see a screening and you
honestly think that the work has flaws
what's the best thing to do maybe it's
not the most honest thing to do you
smile and tell them great job shake
their hand do you admit in a gentle way
that there were some things they were
confused about what's the best policy
well the the typical response when
someone has seen your your film and they
they don't like it or they don't like
parts of it is because they don't want
to come right up and say that they say
film was very interesting and that that
you know that's that's the code word
interesting means it wasn't very good
but the real fact is that that at that
point the game's over the process is
already over so what good is it to say
all I had a problem with this and this
and this now you got to distinguish that
from for example screenings with
audiences on a film that isn't completed
yet you know that this sort of thing is
it typically has a very you know bad
name it's Oh a lease you know it's a
marketing screening where we're going to
try to get a sense from the audience who
what do they know about filmmaking but
you will find fences are very uncertain
and certain things are very good at
giving you feedback now they won't be
able to put it in structural terms oh
you didn't establish the weakness need
of your character in the opening pages
of your film but if you are able to
translate their responses you can often
learn a great deal from them they can
keep my Eyes's of Seagal hot films and
they may not be able to speak in the
language of the writer of the filmmaker
but they know what is not working for
them and so if you as the writer or
filmmaker can listen and be open to that
I have found time and again getting
really good feedback from from an
audience is the normal audience out
there that was very helpful because it
goes back to the old concept of the
customer the customer is always right
right you you can't if you're writing a
script you can't you know and and a
reader says oh this didn't work for me
you can't say well let me explain to you
what I was trying to do if you if they
didn't like it it's your fault it's not
their fault so it's very important to be
open to to any kind of criticism and if
you know how listen you can often find
out some very good things about a script
or a film that you did not know what are
some things to listen for well typically
when an audience is giving you feedback
it's a lot of it is about the pace a lot
of it is about if it's all some version
of it was slow here I didn't like that
character I didn't like that scene so on
and so forth
what they're really talking about is
that the sequencing of the scenes the
building of the story is not right it's
not working for them but last year was
was part of a screening in a film that I
worked on and we found from the audience
that they were having a lot of problems
especially with the final third of the
film and we realized we we had for
various reasons we had a big hole about
two-thirds of the way in the film and we
thought we needed those beats those
scenes because to tell the story but the
audience shows that we did not need
those and so what we did was we
basically cut out about five or six
scenes that we thought had to be in
there for the detailing for the building
of the care
over the course the story turned out we
could pull out all six of those scenes
and boom which we give us the drive into
the final part of the story and didn't
cause a problem at all and instead it
gave us the pacing that we needed to
bring the audience along all the way to
the end of the story so typically that's
it's some version of that because
there's a feeling that the audience has
they again they're not they're not
trained to specifically know why a story
is not building they just know it's not
working for me and you think that's
because we misjudged the audience sort
of level of intuition or interest in the
story and as filmmakers and writers were
too close to our work well we're always
too close to our work yeah absolutely
you know if you've been working on the
script all those iterations if you all
the way through the filmmaking process
and so on then you're you're always
going to be too close to and again
that's why getting that outside feedback
is so valuable but but yes the audience
has a kind of knowledge that is very
useful if we will listen to them and
respect them this by the way is one
reason I believe why like TV drama is
the best writing and filmmaking in the
Hollywood entertainment business today
which is you look at the best shows they
are not speaking down to an audience
that they have exactly the opposite view
toward the audience which is the
audience is smarter than we think they
are and the audience is smarter than we
are
and again this goes against the old
conventional wisdom that you've got a
you know you've got to make things
understandable so everybody out there
will get it well we found out over the
last 10 to 20 years interestingly enough
I think that the biggest thing that
flipped it was Seinfeld because you
there you had four main characters who
were unlikable these these people in
many ways will vary
unpleasant people and this just
completely ran counter to the
conventional wisdom of mainstream
popular storytelling in this case
television right which has the biggest
popular audience there is of any medium
and all of a sudden we realize wait a
minute that in fact it works better if
they're not very likely if they have
problems if they have weaknesses and so
on it finally got into film as well and
as I mentioned earlier even with
superhero stories which were the the end
of you know there were the last type of
storytelling where you would have put
weaknesses in your main character but
now even there we found that the most
popular of these superhero films are
characters with severe character flaws
and it turns out that that makes them
more popular to the audience not less
popular but as I say the the basic
attitude of the the best shows today by
that the audience is very sharp then
they can handle extremely complex
storytelling forms and it actually is
makes it more popular not less so
you