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Post by astralpictures on Feb 27, 2003 2:11:08 GMT -5
We're going to have to hammer out a lot of details here. As for marketing ideas; since this project will be a collaboration of filmmakers each contributing a scene, why not have us filmmakers also each market in our own ways? A lot of us have our own sites and connections with other people who have sites, which would be a great place to start advertising. Plus there are tons of free directories out there to list people's sites. Also, someone should develop a site that is soley information about the movie once it starts getting underway. I guess what I'm trying to say is that word-of-mouth may be our best bet for raising the interest of other people.
We could also aim at a festival run. We can all decide on what festivals will be good to shoot for.
As for the structure of the film itself, should we come up with some pre-conceived ideas or just find out what we can make from each of our scenes? It might be wise for us all to pitch our ideas here and get feedback so we know where the project is heading. We can't all do an intense alien scene or biblical scene; it would seem to me that the best thing is to start out with smaller scale scenes of "weird" things happening and have each successive part growing with intensity. It won't be as interesting if every short made was action packed special effects. Think of the movie Signs, and how a bunch of little things kept growing. Just an idea for us to consider.
Well, I hope I've given everyone something to think about. I'll come up with an idea shortly and hopefully we can start organizing something.
Chris
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Post by Sal Burciaga on Feb 27, 2003 3:22:18 GMT -5
The idea is that the main site will have info about the project for the general public, this bbs and other areas of the site will become password protected as the project evolves...
also a "banner" is on the works so that anyone can link to our page, plus there's another banner for the filmmakers... were still ironing out a lot of stuff... please keep the ideas coming... and remember to send in an email with your info...
filmmaker82@hotmail.com or thecoming@iodrakon.com
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Post by Filmmaker82 on Feb 27, 2003 5:45:25 GMT -5
Okay, I can see where this discussion is going so let me throw something into the fire here...
we should decide, marketing wise, if we want to start this off as a clear MOVIE project or...if we want this to be something that people wonder about...a myth...is it a movie? isn't it? we should decide how we want to start off because eventually everyone would know this is a movie...what propelled me in thinking about how I'm going to edit it all together was this thought of making it something that is not a movie in it's format but something that would look as authentic as possible so that people would start wondering what the hell is this thing? And if that's our approach then I think our whole marketing stategy should be creating a site that has almost nothing - a site that would look like it was created in shir panic and in a hurry. Just simple text that seems to be from one person to someone else...as if it was put up only to give this info for someone else...and then we can spread the word at certain conspiracy freaks' boards and stuff like that and get everybody to start guessing what this is and where it came from before we reveal ourselves and the project in detail...I think this would create a myth/buzz about the project that money can't buy...anyway, I guess we should all decide upon how we want to start marketing this - as a movie or not (at first).
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Post by mattfolwell on Feb 27, 2003 22:07:17 GMT -5
id say its best 2 keep ppl guessing...i mean look at the blair witch...did any of those ppl involved with that think it would take off the way it did....and that was a crap film!
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Post by astralpictures on Feb 28, 2003 0:15:08 GMT -5
I like the idea of keeping it a mystery and playing it as something real. The cult web site posting is also a good idea.
The only way to make it believable it seems though is to make it out to be a documentary. Even if it has a home video look and is lacking a score, people won't be convinced that someone just happened to get their hands on all of this footage unless it seems like it was a documentary. That gives people reasons in their minds for the amount of work it will take to make this.
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Post by crackedvision on Feb 28, 2003 23:03:41 GMT -5
Just my $.02 here....
I really don't think we should go the "play it like it's real" route... It just won't work. That type of thing can only happen one time successfuly, and it was called "The Blair Witch Project". Plus, I think it would be profoundly more interesting to take the more "dramatic" approach. That way we can more fully explore the different ways "the coming" affects people. Some tern to religion.. some don't believe it.. some see it as a means to go anarchist.. the possibilities are endless. But if we limit ourselves to simply trying to look like real events, it's going to turn out looking fake.. it's inevitable. If some people want to use the "home video" idea for their segments, great! The more styles and formats, the better. But please please please don't put a blanket statement on this thing! It'll just kill the creativity of a lot of the people involved.
Ok... I'm done! ;D ~ Stephen
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Post by mattfolwell on Feb 28, 2003 23:18:21 GMT -5
yeah sounds kool... when i said keep ppl guessin i wasn,t saying its gotta be like blair witch...u can keep em guessing usin any style...but its up 2 oded in the end...i think a mix of styles is sound...if it works it works...if it dont it dont...if u limit the style then u will have 2 reject stuff that works well....so a mix does sound good...i think oded wants us 2 do what we feel comfortable doing so if u feel comfortable just doing reality scenes then do em...if not dont do something different...after all this project is one hell of a creative idea!
ps-i need sleep...night guyz (and girlz)
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Post by mattfolwell on Feb 28, 2003 23:24:40 GMT -5
that last line looks a little contradictive..it should read.....
so if u feel comfortable just doing reality scenes then do em...if u dont feel comfortable doing reality blair witch type scenes dont do em, do something different...after all this project is one hell of a creative idea! so lets keep it creative!
so basically do something u are happy with...
deffinatly off sleep now...got date in morning...looks like avril lavine (is that how u spell it?)...nite nite
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Post by crackedvision on Mar 1, 2003 0:54:00 GMT -5
Matt, I completely agree about keeping people guessing! If I was to make the decision, I'd never say at all what the "Coming" actually is... What I was saying was in regards to the style, in which you and I are, again, in agreement... keep the styles open. Some "reality" segments could work really well, I just don't think we should try to play it off as something that really (in actualy reality) happening. I think it should be marketed as a film... not in the way they tried to market "Blair Witch" as something that really happened. Am I making sense? It's getting late! Nite all! ~ Stephen
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Post by Filmmaker82 on Mar 2, 2003 4:29:04 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I wanted to make sure we're all on the same page here - there are two kinds of "keep people guessing" ideas here. One deals with the nature of "the coming", what is it? where is it coming from? etc...and this part I've already discussed with you on my original post - I don't want people watching to know what the coming is...I want them to try and guess what it is but the movie never reveals it...
the other part deals with the marketing of the film and the "keep people guessing" approach here means that at first we don't treat this as a movie, we put it on the web and publish links in a way that seems like anything but marketing. This has been done in a way by "the blair witch project" BUT who says we can't learn from their mistakes and do something better. I know that this is a critical issue and we do need to deal with it now so I'd love for us to further our discussion on it. If we do choose to go with the "keep'em guessing" approach I think we can create something incredible...then again, even if we don't then I still think it'll be amazing. I don't want this to affect the way you make your segments. I said it before and I'll say it again - I can use anything you make. Feel free to create your segment/s with complete artistic freedom - I'll worry about HOW to get this into the end result. I already figured out how to deal with "reality" segments mixed with more cinematic segments in the editing process... I think the end result no matter what our MARKETING APPROACH will be, is going to keep people guessing, but since there are a lot of mixed reactions we should talk about this some more. Oded.
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Post by mattfolwell on Mar 2, 2003 18:06:05 GMT -5
well there u go...i think thats sorted now....it dont matter really how u do it just so long as the final piece is worthy of the effort put into it...
if u put something in u will get something out, if u put that little bit extra in then u will get that little bit extra out
sorry...can u tell ive been drinking 2 day?
need more sleep 2!
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Post by Westerken on Mar 2, 2003 18:41:15 GMT -5
If someone wants to prepare some kind of promotional trailer I can make space for it on Shortkutz Vol. IV (due out in June). I am trying to get material lined up for it by the end of March. The DVD goes out to filmmakers, so, promotionally, it could be a two to three minute plug that says "this is what we're doing and this is how you get involved." Ken www.shortkutzdvd.com
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Post by Another Thought on Mar 2, 2003 21:35:47 GMT -5
Perhaps Sal could occassionally stream people's clips here on the site so others can get a feel of the tone of the film.
Not all of the clips, just the ones that he feels will be anchor scenes.
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Post by Filmmaker82 on Mar 3, 2003 3:35:37 GMT -5
I actually feel that it would be important to keep things under wraps before we have the finished film. \ Anyway, I think a short trailer would prove to be useful. Lets all try and come up with ideas for a trailer explaining what this is and how to get involved. This should be fun considering we don't have anything to show for it yet - it's actually something I have some experience in as I'm sure you all do too.
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Post by phreejimmy on Mar 4, 2003 22:14:53 GMT -5
I think the best bet is to have have it be the "is it real/keep everyone guessing" thing up until the final product is out. The trailer/teaser would only show the psuedo real footage and keep people wondering, but when the final thing is released, it will have the dramatic footage in too. Oh and may I recomend posting something saying this is real down the road somewhere at www.totse.com?
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