Not all films are tested with audiences, but when the process is effective, it can help filmmakers clarify and hone a movie’s message. That was the case with Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater,” which util…
plays Bill Baker, a construction worker from Oklahoma, who is first shown, in quick succession, surveying a wrecked construction site post-hurricane, applying for a new job and eating dinner with his mother. Then, suddenly, he’s packing his bags and heading to Marseille, France. He’s not there for a vacation; he’s trying to free his daughter from prison for a crime she says she didn’t commit.
Through the test screenings, McCarthy and McArdle found that audiences began to connect with Baker when he visits Allison in her prison cell. She’s serving a seven-year sentence for the murder of her lover, Lina. A letter she gives her dad to present to the judge, asking for the case to be reopened, sets the story in motion.Since audiences wanted to see Baker with his daughter sooner, McArdle had to significantly cut back the Oklahoma section.
Transitioning from a scene with Allison in prison after a dramatic moment and cutting to the date proved tricky, but notes from the test audience were helpful in finding the right pacing. “We tried at least 50 different versions of that transition,” McArdle says. He worked with the sound editing team to heighten realism. He points to one sequence where Baker and Virginie travel across town for a dinner with Virginie’s friends, but Baker is preoccupied with his dealings with the French justice system and a tip he’s received. “He’s so consumed with this, and he can’t listen to the conversation in front of him. We took the sound out and we pushed the music up,” McArdle says, to show that Baker wasn’t fully a part of the moment.
Ultimately, the driving factor that guided the way the film was shaped was the relationship dynamics among the characters. “It was really about what felt real and what felt warranted or not,” says McArdle.
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