It's a combination, I think they want to know - it's for every show, which is I think networks want to know that you have a vision for where the show could go to make sure that it really is a show, that it's not just a one-off forty minute pilot, that it's an actual series.
Bryan BurkIt's interesting because the way J.J. cuts - we're very close with our editors as well, so it's kind of the first cut and then he went back and started tightening things up, etc, then loosing things when it was too tight. Then you start watching it and you start figuring out performance - not performance, character-wise I should say, who you're really able to follow, whose journey is harder to follow, and you make all that work.
Bryan BurkScreening is an invaluable part of the process, obviously, having test screening and you definitely learn something.
Bryan BurkSo it's an interesting process just going through and seeing what works and what doesn't work, and what's the best version of it. It was a good process because I think we all collectively, when everyone would run into issues in the cut or know that things weren't working, they kind of glaringly stuck out so we could focus on fixing those things and it wasn't a situation where you would show it to ten people and you would have ten problems.
Bryan BurkThere's an overlap of people we've used from previous films and we also like to obviously bring in new people so we get a fresh voice and opinion when you bring them in. All different ages and genders and everything, you just want a wide spectrum of people who are coming in to see what works.
Bryan BurkThen we started looking at story and what was making sense and what wasn't making sense, emotionally and thematically the intention that we had a year earlier when they were working on the script, did all that come across? It's all kind of generic things, but it's fascinating and it's weird - I haven't made that many films, but it's weird that every time you think you learn from your mistakes on your last film you have a slew of new mistakes and things that you learn.
Bryan Burk