Matt Porter, Kyle Jason, and David C. Snyder outside of the screening room at the end of Icon 31
This past weekend, actors Kyle Jason and Matt Porter, Executive Producer Kim Garnett, and I took Dark of Winter to ICON 31, a science fiction convention held at Stony Brook University in New York. We were the last minute addition (many thanks to Ken Deep!) to their screening schedule and it was exciting to get to show the film to an audience that really had no idea as to what to expect.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that we were the last minute addition, the film wasn’t as prominently featured in the press materials as some of the other events. However, a little leg work and some informative promotional materials got us a few extra viewers added to those people who had already tracked us down on the schedule and wanted to check out our very particular psychological horror film.
Saturday night’s premiere had anywhere from 20-30 people show up. We screened the film from a DVD I had prepared for the event and, due to the set up, it looked like garbage. I told the audience during the Q&A afterwards that the film did indeed look better than what they saw and they completely understood.
Some people walked out, which was to be expected, and I had hoped more people would’ve stayed for the Q&A. But the people that did stay gave us great feedback, asked questions, and really seemed receptive to the film. There was even a Michael Bay joke for good measure. This reaffirmed to me that we do indeed have an audience for the film, which is an issue that crosses every filmmaker’s mind at one point or another during the making of a picture.
On Sunday we screened the film from a hi-def file on my laptop and, although a little bit dark, it was a much more accurate presentation. The down side was that we only had a couple of people come through for the screening (including one guy from the night before!) and Q&A. I’m not really broken up about it, though, because it was the last day of the Con and people were just trying to get in as much as they could as everything shut down and thinned out. The upside was that one of the audience members said that the film had shades of Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly’s celebrated cult film from 2001, a reference that I hadn’t thought of before. I love Donnie Darko, so I’ll take that any day.
Was it a success? Was it worth it? Hell yes. As nerve wracking as it is to screen your film for an audience, that’s the whole point, and it gives you pointers and feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. It’s a valuable part of the editing process as long as you use it for what it’s worth. I know that a lot of directors loathe the test screening process because of the way the studios handle it. But if you screen your film for your intended audience, then it can be an extremely useful tool.
But it is still nerve wracking…
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