MovieChat Forums > Heckler (2007) Discussion > I love Eli Roth's comment about focus gr...

I love Eli Roth's comment about focus groups

posted 12 years ago by Clem_DeFontane
5 replies | jump to latest

They TOTALLY kill good ideas unjustifiably. Gather three groups of 8 people, ask them questions about what they saw, and forget that you're going to have social loafers and overachievers in the groups. It's a recipe for a compromise-frankenstein of an end product.

I swear, some insightful people are just going to sit there, while other people feel like they've been asked to a consulting gig and think WAY too hard about their feedback.

Focus groups don't work, because they're so often used as diagnostic tools, when they should only be used as exploratory tools--means of figuring out what to investigate with your real diagnostic tools like surveys and experiments.

Did that part hit anybody else this hard?

[–] manythings711 11 years ago

A groupr of 15-20 people get to decide what millions think of a film? Good lord how does that make any sense to hollywood?

[–] jeronjimenez 11 years ago

I can't remember which filmmaker said it, but they said something I found interesting.They said that focus groups could work, but they often don't because the studio gets a group of people to watch a movie and give feedback.The mistake they make is that they change or edit the film to fit the feedback they got, but then they get a separate group of different people to watch it and get their feedback.Of course the opinion of the second group is going to be different from the first group's.If you want a focus group to be effective, it has to be a consistent, controlled experience.If you change variables such as the group members, you're never going to get the results you want.

[–] SillyGayBoy 11 years ago

Event Horizon would have been longer and much scarier had it not been for focus groups and the longer version no longer exists.

[–] daddie0 10 years ago

I'm not sure how hard that hit me, but I agree. It kowtows to group-think all but guaranteeing that major releases devolve to the lowest common denominator. I can't imagine as an artist (or an art-producing company) that you would ever allow your audience to dictate your product. Of course that's the rub, it's those who think it's only a money-producing company that love to use these groups.

[–] Elemenoh 10 years ago

I agree with you and Roth in general principle, but there are some times that focus groups have saved us from terrible decisions.

Consider the original "Pretty Woman," in which the Roberts character is an unrepentant cocaine addict, Richard Gere is physically abusive, then dumps her on the streets, where she commits suicide.