FANTASTIC FEST 2012 Journal

I thought I would use this blog for my Guerilla Marketing class to talk about my trip to Austin, TX for FANTASTIC FEST 2012. This is the largest and most prestigious genre film festival in America, and my short film SÉANCE was an Official Selection, a rare and distinguished honor (they select only 50 shorts out of the hundreds of submissions each year.)

A scene from SÉANCE

Here is a journal of my amazing experience:

DAY 1:
My producer (Susan Williams) and I arrived in Austin about 4:00pm. We decided that before getting to the house we were staying at, we would case out the theater and pick up our Badges. The theater was the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, which has 6 theaters. For the entire week, the theater is dedicated to the festival. We picked up our badges and were surprised to find gift cards for both Susan and I for $60 each, to be used for food and drinks during the festival. Already this was way better than any festival had treated us. There were two big screenings that night: Frankenweenie and Dredd 3D, both of which were sold out by the time we arrived. After dropping our stuff off at the house we were staying (Thanks again Andrea!) we headed back and decided to hang out and mingle.

We are shy people, so there was not much mingling. We got some amazing food truck tacos, but before that, we did go to the Dredd Slo Mo Booth!

DAY 2:

We arrived back at the theater at 11:00am for the shuttle to Tim League's house for a very special lunch for the filmmakers. We were then treated to amazing food (WHOLE HOG!) and got to meet a few of the filmmakers.

YK Kim runs onto the table. Susan and I are visible in the background (Tall guy and Red head)

We ate with the Souska Sisters, amazingly nice people whose film AMERICAN MARY was a big hit at the festival. Then we met the writer and director of THE COLLECTION, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who seemed to enjoy how much I liked their previous film, The Collector. They convinced me to try to get tickets for their sold out show that night, so I agreed to try.

After lunch, we headed straight to the Guest Services table, where Madison Pope and Johnny Martinez worked tirelessly to make sure our stay was amazing and we got into every screening we wanted. These were amazing people! They got us tickets to two sold out films that night:

THE COLLECTION: Really fun gory slasher film. 

MIAMI CONNECTION: One of the worst films I have ever seen, on par with The Room and Troll 2. Also one of the most fun screenings ever. Tears of laughter. I actually flew in with the cast of this film, all very sweet people.

We decided to skip the live performance of Dragon Sound and go home.

DAY 3:

This was the day of our screening, which played before a wonderful documentary called MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, one of the most anticipated films of the festival.

But before that, SHOTGUNS!

We had a SHOTGUN OUTING! Our group consisted of Me, Susan, Cole Drumb and Jen Luk (POSTHUMAN), James Nunn and Robbie Thompson (TOWER BLOCK) and Matthias Hoene (COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES). I hit 3 out of 10 clay pigeons. Susan hit 0.

After overheating in the Texas sun, we went back and freshened up a bit before the Premiere of SÉANCE. The audience responded extremely positively to the film, which played before the feature doc MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, directed by Eric Walter, who was also super nice. On top of that, he made a really great film. We meet a writer for TwitchFilm who loved the film and was astonished that it only cost $700. We then went to the screening of THE EXORCIST IN THE 21st CENTURY, which was also very interesting. The filmmakers were extremely fun guys, and talked with us a bit afterwards.

DAY 4:

Our goal was to get into ROOM 237. I wanted to see this more than any other film. We waited in line for an hour for tickets. While in line, we met Michael Stephenson, director of Best Worst Movie and THE AMERICAN SCREAM. He really liked Séance!

We finally got to the ticket desk, but ROOM 237 was sold out. We then went to Johnny and Madison on our knees looking for a miracle. They said to check back around 2:00pm, which meant we would have to cut the outing to Smitty's BBQ short by driving ourselves.

SMITTY'S BBQ: Authentic Texas BBQ. Everything else is poison!

We then raced back 40 minutes to see if we did get the tickets... Then Johnny said we didn't. As the air left our body, a woman on the phone with Madison handed us two tickets! According to Madison, the phone call went something like this:

"Hey, we got two cancellations. What do the Seance people look like?"
"Um... Beard and Redhead."
"... Got em!"

ROOM 237: Very entertaining film that goes against everything I believe Kubrick intended. Still worth seeing!

We then met the director, Rodney Asher. He was nice enough, but I'm sure he was tired of talking all day, so the conversation was a bit short.

With no other films to see at the festival, we decided to hang out and mingle a bit. We met back up with Eric Walter and Producer Andrea Adams of MY AMITYVILLE HORROR and shot the shit a bit before leaving to see the Austin Bats. They were awesome, but it was a bit too dark.

We had plans to see a 70mm print of The Master at 10:30 that night, but I was way too exhausted. We went home and slept through our last night in Austin.

DAY 5:

We basically just hung out at the theater until our flight. We said our goodbyes to Johnny and Madison, as well as Willita Mahone (Transportation, super cool too). While killing time, we hung out with the Souska Twins again, and met up with Eric Walter again. He assured us he would say nice things about Séance before the second screening, which we could not attend. I have not followed up on this... I'm sure he did it. Then we drove to the airport.

And that was my trip to Austin. I assured everyone I would be back in two years with INTERIOR, my feature. And goddammit I will! It was the best festival I have ever been to and the best weekend of my life.

INTERIOR: Posting the Opening Scene

To coordinate with the launch of the KICKSTARTER campaign, we decided to post the Opening Scene of INTERIOR in full Binaural Sound. These are the keywords I chose:

interior, binaural, sound, horror, microbudget, opening scene, 3D audio, seance, zachary, beckler.

This is a very dated way of Tagging videos. Using the YOUTUBE keywords tool, I started refining the words I chose, and added others. This is what I came out with:

interior, binaural, 3d, horror, sound effects, audio, illusion, terrifying video, ghost footage, scary videos, poltergeist, scariest, ghosts, micro budget filmmaking.

We'll see how well these words do in the coming weeks.

INTERIOR - 10 Key Words To Market Binaural Horror

These are 10 Keywords I came up with to help people find my film INTERIOR on the web:

- Binaural
- Paranormal
- Haunted House

- Isolation
- Independent Film
- DSLR
- UCF Film

- Horror

- 3D Sound

- Interior

INTERIOR is an independent horror production that happens the be the first binaural horror film ever made.  In making the project, I must consider the end game of distribution and marketing. In an age where theatrical distribution is becoming more and more rare (though projection systems are getting more and more and more inclusive...), making a feature film that would work best via download and home viewing seems like a smart tactic. Then again, I would take theatrical distribution in a heartbeat if it was offered. Does this make me a whore for the old ways? It is definitely a more difficult way, and harder to integrate into the production.

In reality, INTERIOR has gone a step further by integrating distribution into the AESTHETIC of the film. Binaural audio requires headphones, something theaters do not have (save for those crappy assisted listening devices). By shooting an entire feature with Binaural Sound, it forces a method of online distribution for private viewings. Though a separate soundtrack would be made for theatrical viewings, the optimum exhibition format would be on your home computer with headphones. 

What can we do to integrate marketing, though? I have already started a small online campaign involving the opening scene of INTERIOR, which we made this summer. I am sending the video to friends and anyone else interested on the condition that they video themselves watching the scene. Not only have I gotten great reactions, but they are watching the scene the same way you would watch the finished film. This will be effective in creating content for the marketing and will help the video go viral.

In fact, if you're reading this now, consider watching the scene and filming your reaction.

Now the really hard part comes: Make a film engaging enough so people won't leave their computers for 90 minutes.

Positioning

Where do we position the UCF Film MFA? Let's look at three things: Where are we located, what do we offer, and how successful have we been?

Where are we located?

In Florida, not only do we have FSU, one of the most prestigious film schools in the country, but right down the road in Orlando is Full Sail University. Full Sail does not offer any MFA degree in filmmaking, as you can see on the front page of their website. FSU does have a Film Production MFA, as well as access to the latest and greatest in camera equipment. which leads me to my next question:

What do we offer?

In terms of equipment, very little in fact. You get to work with DSLR cameras and prosumer sound gear to make movies here. But what PSU doesn't offer is the Feature Length Project. You graduate from their program with a very expensive short film ready for festival run and little else. UCF Film allows student to make a feature length film and own it themselves. FSU still owns their students' films when they graduate. So UCF Film is one of the few universities that allows the student a) to make a feature, and b) to own it when they leave. Of the other film schools that allow you to make a feature in the US, they seem to only a allow documentary features. This is a very unique and interesting market that is left untapped.

How Successful Have We Been?

I couldn't tell you. Because UCF Film can't tell me. Because there is no one at UCF Film who can keep track of these things. FSU, Full Sail, AFI, etc, have committees and divisions dedicated to keeping track of alumni. UCF Film doesn't even have a person running the blog anymore. The marketing of this former department and current division (?) has always been somewhat of an afterthought. Why else are all marketing materials created by the Operations Manager and students in the Equipment Room, even when there was a marketing person on staff? UCF Film has a "specialist" now, but they mostly do office work for the division, through no fault of their own. This is one of the main reasons UCF Film is not of any stature today. What it offers is unique and kind of amazing, but the sights are too short.

If I was positioning UCF Film, I would sell it not as any kind of lesser program, or fall back option. I would say they are the ONLY ones doing what they are doing, and the first. They do their own thing. Here are a couple of not-so-serious slogans:

UCF Film: What the hell can you do with a short these days?
UCF Film: Yeah, we're here.
UCF Film: Why pay more for less?
UCF Film: Make the feature you never would otherwise.
or, more concise:
UCF Film: Make YOUR feature.

PMD Post

In this day and age, marketing a film is more important than making a film. The days of writing a script, making the movie, and hoping to get into festivals still exists, but is different. You cannot make the film, THEN think about the marketing. It has to be as dominant on a filmmaker's mind as the film itself. The trouble is, it is a more work than most are capable of. It is hard enough to run the marathon of film directing, now we are asked to find the sponsors for the run ourselves instead of training. You can see the effect it has on the films today, a lot of which are marketable ideas without any redeemable craft. This is where a dedicated Producer of Marketing and Distribution is almost as vital as the Producer themselves. So much time, energy and thought goes into the marketing of a film, which is a totally separate activity from the making of a film: the power of a film lies in the experience, whereas the power of a campaign lies in sellable moments within an experience. If I were to hire a PMD today, these are the things I would want to talk about:

1) The first thing I would do is talk about what this film has that no other film does. Those things would be a) a unique limitation of one main actor in one location, b) the use of the digital image and social media within the actual narrative, and c) that the film is the first Binaural horror feature ever made.

2) I would take these elements of the film and create a general marketing and distribution strategy. This is a film made for at-home computer viewing, which plays into the films themes of isolation. We would talk about doing a standard festival run, and then self-distributing the film online in binaural form. The best element the project has is the binaural angle, as it is the most marketable.

3) Then we would talk about fundraising, using Kickstarter and playing up the binaural aspect of the film by posting a video of the opening scene in Binaural sound.

4) Next, we would talk about our audience. The viewing audience for horror is huge and diverse, as pretty much everyone watches the films, but that isn't the kind of audience we need AT THIS POINT. We need horror fans who are interested in upcoming projects. I would then tell the PMD to make a list of popular horror websites and send out press releases about the upcoming fundraising campaign. They may be so interested in our project they post about us.

5) I would also have the PMD do some research on the best distribution methods at our disposal.

6) We would then gather all of our assets (poster designs, trailers, scenes, etc...) and create a marketing schedule for the release of materials.

7) One of the most important tasks would be to update the social media websites daily, and I would make the PMD an admin on all the pages. We need content content content every day.

8) We would talk briefly about the print campaign, with posters at various locations around our city. If it is in enough places, it might spark interest.

9) I want to have public screenings of my short film, Séance, with special "binaural booths" where people can watch to opening scene with headphones in the dark.

10) With Facebook, I would have the PMD create pages for every character in the film, and have the actors post regularly, in character. 

11) We would discuss any viral marketing strategies, such as ghost videos on Youtube as ads for the film, and perhaps start a blog by the characters living in the house documenting their sightings.

12) I would ask for a list of festivals that INTERIOR would thrive in and have enough publicity to help spread the word when the film is finished.