I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it’s getting.
BARRY LEVINSONAll I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that’s what ultimately works the best for me.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
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You do understand that you can’t force the situation, but in terms of how you edit, you can define that to take the audience along, whether it be a storyline or a character moment that we can play out. The more experience you’ve had, the more beneficial it is, period.
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I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
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I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.
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A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.
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I’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
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Even back in the ’90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn’t digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.
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When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
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I think it’s a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
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Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
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We’re never going to be the ultimate-insider look. You can do 50 insider looks at this Hollywood business, and the satire didn’t intrigue me. I think others can do that.
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I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
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Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America – it could even be the mythical “America” – that we subscribe to.
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They’re intimidating the networks and levying these fines, so the networks are not sure of what they can or can’t do.
BARRY LEVINSON