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Once there's a formula its DED

I try to follow all the going on's in the world of COUGH "independent film"... seems like theres a lot of checklists and stuff about what your supposed to do to promote a film... when in reality the checklists were made after the fact by looking at what successful campaigns done DID... and when those promo campaigns were done it was probably something new... like they didn't follow any checklists... So who are all those checklists and crap for? Probably people that will pay $1000 to go to some "independent filmmaking" seminar or some shit... there's a lot of people making a lot of money off of wannabe filmmakers who have convinced themselves that they need to attend all these seminars or buy all these books or whatever to be "successful" I think that its just another form of procrastination...

NOW since the world is so connected and information is so easy to share and spread amongst millions of people I think if you as a filmmaker spend all this time and energy trying to set up all the sites for your film and like contact all these people online to promote that its a waste... BECAUSE if you do your job right TODAY your film will promote itself.... its not about being found anymore... people can find anything EASILY but why would they want to? And once they found then what? Oh yep here's some mediocre film thats doing everything its "supposed to do"... tite.... Ok back to facebook...

ALSO what ends up happening is it takes away from the actual film... the filmmakers get caught up in the promotion and distribution and the film is an afterthought... I've seen lots of really smart people talk about all the ways they monetized they films and got into played here and there and were paid this much money blah blah but the film itself was mediocre... an afterthought ....it was mere "content" shudder... now for a lot of those people thats ok with them... they make "content" which they try to get to market as fast as possible and maximize its income... BUT its because its all PUSH PUSH by them and USUALLY they tie the film to some real world "cause" to piggyback theY way into already established groups... now thats all fine as a business model BUT the fact is that what they are making does not cause any wonder or awe... there's no magic in it... and shortly after its initial exposure it will be forgotten and they will do it all over again with another film and "cause" this is just a trend I see in "independent" filmmaking... Its working now for a lot of people but I don't see it as a way to rise to the top...

So I believe if you do your job as a filmmaker and create something totally unique, powerful and extraordinary the film will promote itself... people will share it and spread it using all the tools that are now in idle hands... I mean you can probably contact 500-1000 people in the click of a button right now right? But why would you? "HEY check out this mediocre indy film that looks like a third rate version of X Hollywood film!" or "HEy check out this trailer for this new Hollywood movie which is already pasted all over the place and has 10 websites with all the information, iphone apps, and crap I would never want" NAH we won't do that.... The value is in scarcity as many have noted... WE want to have something no one else has or knows about... we want to be the first to bring something to light... we want to surprise people, shock them... At least thats what I think.... Its like everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder in a small room but there's nothing to talk about... as a filmmaker YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT....and if you do and it sustains a conversation you will be successful... thats how I'm approaching my new film...

As of right now I don't even have a website for HSM ^ ^ There's virtually no info at all even though its 6  months from completion... any other film would have a site and a facebook and a blah blah with all the relevant info + images + plus teaser trailers and all that... BUT that stuff kills the mystery, the mystique... How many times have you discovered a trailer or an image from some film and went like "WTF is THIS?!" and then googled it and found the super detailed site and went like "OH...yeh its this film made by this person based on this book...." and then never thought about it again? IF I can't find any more information about it I go nuts looking 0_0 WHAT is this thing?! And my interest continues...I might even ask other people about it.... ya see where I'm going here?

So I'm not going to promote the new film at all myself.... I'm just going to put some stuff out and see what the internetS thinks of it because thats the true test anyway nah mean? NOW someone might say "if no one knows about it, no one will discover it and no one will ever find it" NOW lets use the "If a tree falls in a forest.." example.... If you make a normal film like all before you mainstream or "indie"... yeh you made a tree...and it fell... no one cares.... BUT if instead of a tree its a 1000 FOOT TALL BEHEMOTH SEVEN HEADED DEMON SPEWING ACID FROM ITS EYEBALLS AND SCREECHING LIKE A DEMONIC BANSHEE ON ACID then I can assure YOU SOME MUTHAFUCKERS WILL HEAR IT AND RUN SCREAMING ABOUT IT TO EVERYONE THEY KNOW ^ ^

SO again for SURVIVAL it comes down to one thing... not the promotion, distribution, branding, awareness blah blah... it comes down to MAKING UNIQUE BOLD AWESOME FUCKING AWE INSPIRING FILMS...if you do that in todays internets all the other work will be done for you.

Aight I'm back to animating meh friends.... remember THE SWORD KNOWS!!!

Comments

  1. Words of a wise dude. If you build it, they WILL come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Little taken back by your ways of (er... lack of) promotion of HSM.

    I have to say... I probably would have never found you if it wasn't for your awesome trailer that somehow popped up on Gametrailers.com's user movies section.

    WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT AM I SAYING? I would have DEFINITELY found you otherwise. I mean seriously, you've caused such a stir on Youtube and made so many film festivals your B***H.

    Ok... I get it now. After all these days of NOT SEEING ANYTHING about HSM, I am SCARED about what it's going to be like.

    Well... your plan is working. Extremely well.

    I do hope that in all of this, we'll still be able to see a bunch of inside material after the movie is out. DVD extra features kinda stuff. I really enjoyed that about WATS.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds really smart! I remember when they first announced The Last Guardian..(A ps3 game) and they hadn't even gave it a real name yet..It had some basic working title type of name...and all they released was a single image...actually they didn't even do that for a long time...but they finally released that one image...Just a well-like stone structure of some sort with a chain...The curiosity was enough to kill! Drove me crazy wondering what the game would be like...and just one image...
    anywho,
    Sounds like a good plan M. Full speed ahead!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Last Guardian is a great example. As was their previous titles - Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. So many fucking game studios shout ZOMG VIDEOGAMES ARE ART, but those games were art. They had amazing visual design, but most importantly they didn't conform to anything that anybody had seen before.

    In a market where games where all about melting the face off shit as fast as you possibly can like an inhuman sociopath, these games had you take responsibility and ownership of your actions. Ico was beautiful and centered mostly around protecting and bonding with another character in the game, and done in such a way that people still played it end to end.

    Colossus was true genius though. On paper it was just endless wandering around on a horse and boss fights, but to summarize it like this is the edge of pure stupidity. It had one main game mechanic - regret.

    You would wander endlessly across a landscape into the home of these enormous, beautiful creatures, and then slay them for your own benefit. The art direction, and taking this enormous fucking risk of having the players zen out on the way to the fights via scenery and strange, subtle interactions with the world around them, led to a scenario where you knew you had to do this thing, but genuinely didn't want to do it.

    I can remember misting up many, many times in that game as the main character stood quietly in front of the sad, slumped remains of one of the giants who did nothing wrong except exist.

    They studio wont advertise last guardian unless sonly really wrenches them too. Shadow of the Colossus sold on the back of how beautiful ICO was, and nearly five years later I'll sure as hell be taking a day off and racing to the shops to pick up Guardian and experience it. I don't care if you have to have the disc wrought from your own bones to play it, I'll be there.

    HSM is exactly, exactly the same gig. There's been no information at all really released about it, apart from bits of render tests, and its the _only_ film im hanging out for this year, literally. There's nothing that would stop me seeing it, at all, all based on WATS.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ALSO, fuck, if you want to contrast this - Heavy Rain. The idea was genius, it was a unique and novel approach to story driven gaming, and it was hyped to fucking death.

    The outcome? We all knew how it would play. How it would function, that it would "tug on the heartstrings" because we were told it would. The result? Yeah, it was novel, but the story was a flaming heap of shit, and the sensation was "oh, yeah. so thats what they were talking about", compared to the hype that promised the SUPER MEGA IMMERSIVE LIFE SHATTERING ALTERNATE REALITY NOVEL OF THE CENTURY.

    There's many, many well written and brain damaging text adventures and old point and clicks that BLOW IT OUT OF THE WATER, back when it was three dudes with a big dream, a desktop computer and no fucking budget at all.

    ReplyDelete
  6. can you terll us about grass blade # 10,682?
    i would love to hear what that blade of grass does for your film...
    lol

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can agree that you don't need seminars to make the movie you want. If you want to do it, do it. Cause once you make the craziest, most original film out there, your name becomes the promotion.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sorry M. yeh I ll be back now to woods,Im not a liar, but just came home on 2 hours to make something and something that u dont need ^_^ now,You know how I found WATS...by DREAM...yeh I saw them in dream..so like I haD ur personal WATS-indie-channel in my head^ ^It was really strange.So I knew where to search, But u see how many ways for something special^_^

    ReplyDelete
  9. "If you make a normal film like all before you mainstream or "indie"... yeh you made a tree...and it fell... no one cares.... BUT if instead of a tree its a 1000 FOOT TALL BEHEMOTH SEVEN HEADED DEMON SPEWING ACID FROM ITS EYEBALLS AND SCREECHING LIKE A DEMONIC BANSHEE ON ACID then I can assure YOU SOME MUTHAFUCKERS WILL HEAR IT AND RUN SCREAMING ABOUT IT TO EVERYONE THEY KNOW ^ ^"


    This is pure win.

    Your food for thought is always tasty, M dot.

    ReplyDelete
  10. RE: The last guardian- I had not heard of it but when I looked at the trailer I could tell by the lighting and texturing that it was the same studio as Collossus ^ ^

    @ Michael Duffy- yeh right now all I can offer is thought... but soon enough I'll start droppin actual stuff from the film here and hopefully its even tastier ^ ^ BUT I hope it doesn't make anyone Puke?!? 0_o

    AND I promise that the first people in teh world to see the trailer and the like will be you all... it will be private at first so I can make sure that the people that supported me though it will get the first chance to see it ^ ^ Ok back to werk!

    ReplyDelete
  11. @mdotstrange

    the day you start releasing stuff on the movie may be the day i stop reading this blog
    because depeniding on how long i can resist it i wanna be completley NEW to the whole movie i don;t want to know any charecters or what i'm getting to see on the movie
    i'm not even bothering with watching on youtube i'm buying it straight away and watching it the minuet i get it in the mail
    i plan on doing the same thing if and when i start film making
    but i decided if i do release trialers
    they'll be little shorts of what the charecters do before some life changing even that starts a movie
    like a guy working in a store he talks to a few customers yada yada BANG a few screams and it's over

    leave them in suspense they have no idea whats happened thats the wya i think of it haha

    ReplyDelete

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