Scary Article about SAG Ultra-Low Budget Agreement

From what I heard, the film played on college campuses at midnight screenings and such, then went into a handful of non campus theaters after the deal. They added more marketing dollars as it was clearly liked by the audiences. Either way, in order to open wide, marketing dollars have to be spent - in this case, not a whole for a fantastic return on the investment. I know that I never heard of the film until I saw the trailer on ABC in primetime.

Michael
 
Very nice comments, Chamber (post #70), and I agree with all of it.

Yes, certainly content and marketing must exist in proper proportion. I too have seen very talented people in various fields with so little business acumen that their works stayed under the proverbial rock until it was too late to do anything about it (styles changed, etc.). Or they simply never got that aspect together. Ever...

But the opposite is also a mistake (as you mentioned in passing): thinking that marketing is *the* ball game. My earlier point was that you can't successfully market a turkey (re: that $54M Bennifer filmasco that started with a "G" and sort of rhymes, ever so appropriately, with "ugly").

But I think it's accurate to say that fewer heavily marketed films that turned out to be widely acknowledged as bad (by both critics and audiences) made tons of money than (at least initially) lightly marketed films like "Paranormal Activity" that were conversely widely acknowledged as being excellent.

-That Movie Whose Name We Shall Not Mention lost $47M...

-"Slumdog Millionaire", after being *dropped* by Warner's (then picked up by Fox Searchlight) earned $350M, but cost less than a third of...um...you know...to make...

There's justice in that...
 
MichaelP said:
From what I heard, the film played on college campuses at midnight screenings and such, then went into a handful of non campus theaters after the deal. They added more marketing dollars as it was clearly liked by the audiences. Either way, in order to open wide, marketing dollars have to be spent - in this case, not a whole for a fantastic return on the investment. I know that I never heard of the film until I saw the trailer on ABC in primetime.

Michael
Click to expand...

Right, but it would pretty much have taken a marketing moron not to do at least what they did once it started to get that kind of grassroots/critical buzz. A film that gets that kind of traction early on is all but a marketing no-brainer. In this case, all the brilliant-ness was up there on the screen...
 
I am not debating the marketing effort at all - that was great. Now we need it to happen on more than two films 10 years apart.

Michael
 
MichaelP said:
I am not debating the marketing effort at all - that was great. Now we need it to happen on more than two films 10 years apart.

Michael
Click to expand...


Yes! And I think that means individuals associated with an indie film pursing more of an education in marketing. Blair Witch and PA were marketed by huge offices. Most indie filmmakers are busy self-promoting when they should be having other people promote them and their film.

You know who will do that for you? Anyone and everyone! You get some trusted people together and tell them that they can have a share in the profits if they go out and get customers. Or, heck, give them a producer credit AND portions of the profit.

Unlike cooks in a kitchen, a movie can't have too many producers, so long as they're not allowed any creative input.
 
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