Indie films wage an ongoing war with major releases for awareness and promotion in a cluttered market space. It’s a war independent films are losing. Some cool films deserve to be seen in cinemas with an audience of fans. Films like REC2, the terrifying sequel to the horror hit REC.
REC2 will be released in a few New Zealand theatres on Black Friday (13 Nov), and I’m helping the distributor – Vendetta Films – to get the word out. The catch? They only have a few thousand to market it.
So I pitched Vendetta to let me give away 75% (Five Thousand Dollars Cash) to any individual(s) who promote (Buzz) the movie REC2 in the boldest and most innovative fashion. They said yes.
To be in to win the $5k all you need to do is use the untapped power of your mind. How’s that for a recession buster? For more information, read here and here.
— Ant Timpson, Filmhead
To aid you in creating buzz for the New Zealand release of Rec2 on 13 November, we’re making available a few useful materials. Grab them from the links below and go crazy!
640 x 360 QuickTime trailer in H.264/AAC format, 8.4MB
High-res RGB poster JPEG, 2.7MB
High-res CMYK poster JPEG, 5.6MB
High-res layered CMYK poster PSD, 57.3MB
Set of 3 film stills, 1920 x 1080 JPEG, 3.3MB
Set of 20 film stills, mixed resolutions and formats, 50.8MB
Anyone over 18 is eligible. Under 18s must have their guardian/parent claim the prize if they win.
Start thinking now. You have 4 weeks to Buzz like crazy. Start earlier as more people will see what you do. Wait until the last few days and it might be too late.
Buzz is the public and media awareness of the film.
Ultimately you want to think of what you can do to alert the most people about the film being released on Nov 13th. You can choose to focus on doing something in public, television, online, print or on radio or everywhere.
Think like a rebel. Act like a guerilla. Manipulate and Maneuver in print, web, radio, tv - anywhere you can. And yes, even abuse positions of power and influence
Bad Buzz is doing anything illegal or morally reprehensible. If it’s not cool then please don’t do it.
Use your amazing photoshop skills, elegant writing style, your video editing prowess, your musical brilliance, your viral filmmaking genius. Most of all we want you to have fun making this stuff. Judges will be looking at innovation and amount of interest in what you can pull off.
REMEMBER : Please attach a short description of what you’ve done and links to where people can see it. We’ll upload submissions after we view them. They don’t upload automatically.
You might be a creative person who works on shitty client cat food promos. Here is your chance to cut loose and let people see what you can really do. Collect up everything you’re responsible for and submit it here.
IMPORTANT : Remember you can keep sending as much as you like, and the earlier you start buzzing the more people will see what you do over the next month. Just make sure you submit each entry with the same credentials so we can group them together.
It will go live on this site as long as you don’t link to animal porn. The judges will be checking out the submissions as they go up. If you (and your friends)have joined tumblr you can also ‘like’ the post. Send people to see what you’ve done here. And join twitter and tag your work with #rec2nz.
Anything and everything. We have a download area on the main page where you can grab stills, trailers and press material.
Everyone can enter this competition. If you work in media and think you can exploit your position then go for it. Your employers might not be that happy. Is your job worth $5000 cash?
We don’t think that’s true. Their are some very smart cookies out there. This is a time for some of them to show off. But if we come across complete apathy we will still give it away no matter what. Even if someone just sends in a REC2NZ tweet that they did they could win five thousand dollars for one second of their time.
This competition is the property of Organisers 2Brothers and Vendetta Films. 2Brothers and Vendetta Films are not liable for any actions participants undertake on behalf of the competition. All entrants are responsible for their submissions. If any submission involves illegal activity the entry in question becomes ineligible and authorities will be directed to those responsible.
Entries will be judged on the interpretation of the brief and its ability to be engaging, catchy, emotive, funny or quirky and how effectively they alert people to REC2’s upcoming release.
The films, photos, songs, posters, podcasts etc should encourage people to forward to their friends, or include it in their blogs or social networks.
Most importantly it should inspire people to see the movie itself.
The competition is open to everyone. However a guardian/parent must claim the prize if the participant is under 18.
The winner will be informed during the week of Nov 7-13th and the results posted on this site.
In addition the entries and any of the submitted films/animations may be used by the organisers for publicity and promotional purposes.
You can submit as many entries as you want.
The Organisers cannot be held responsible for any entries that are not received.
The Organisers reserve the right to refuse to accept any images that contain offensive or inappropriate content. The criteria for such content, is solely at the discretion of the Organisers.
No entries will be accepted after Nov 6th, 2009.
By claiming the $5000 prize, the winner authorises the use, without additional compensation, of his or her name and/or likeness and/or voice/photograph and city of residence for promotion and/or advertising purposes in any manner and in any medium (including without limitation, radio broadcasts, newspapers and other publications and in television or film releases, slides, videotape, distribution over the internet and picture date storage) which the Organisers may deem appropriate.
Competitors agree to allow the Organisers the rights in perpetuity, to use any submitted image for promotional purposes of this competition in any media format and to alter, crop, montage those images with the consent of the contributor.
The Organisers of the competition will not be held responsible or liable for the content of submissions to the contest.
By entering the competition you are agreeing to be bound by these rules.
Hi my name is Ant Timpson. I do some film things in New Zealand like the 48HOURS and the INCREDIBLY STRANGE segment of the Film Festival, the 24HOUR MOVIE MARATHON and whore myself to media anywhere I can.
So whats with this kerfuffle all about? Well we have to go back a few years to the city of Toronto.
At a secret (non Festival) screening in Toronto a few years ago I was lucky enough to sit with five friends and watch the horror film REC before anyone knew what the film was about. I loved the film and wanted to bring it to New Zealand to show audiences. I told head honcho of Rialto Distribution Kelly Rogers that he needed to buy the film immediately as long as I could promote it and secure it for the film festival. He agreed and bought REC. The film has was a success in the film festival, in its limited theatrical release and finally on home-video. The dvd was sub-distributed by Vendetta Films.
When REC2 came up for sale Rialto passed onit but Vendetta jumped all over it. Since I found REC and helped release it to NZ they approached me about helping release the film again in NZ. It was a no-brainer for me. The first film has so much goodwill and love from fans that they are very keen to see the second one. The only hitch, Vendetta only want a limited release and have a very small marketing budget (approx NZ$7500 all up). The sanest thing to do would be to just go out direct to dvd and save your $7500 as there’s an audience already waiting for the film.
However I love seeing horror movies with audiences in CINEMAS.. they transform into fantastic collective experiences, especially when they deliver. And both RECs deliver. So how do you release a film to cinemas with only $7500? Lets remember that a large mainstream release can have hundreds of thousanns spent on P&A (prints and advertising) to reach its audience.
You can’t compete with the majors on terms of budget. It’s like throwing peanuts at a tank. So how do you try to compete in a cluttered marketplace where the dominant alphas are all huge studio films.
Well recently a company** (Stradella Road)** that handles all of Peter Jackson’s online marketing and strategy came out with a survey they did on nearly 4000 moviegoers. The results were insightful and telling. Old media is not where moviegoers get their movie information from. For the first time in recorded history more people find out about films online than even tv now. 70% find out via online trailers and friend chatter. 86% across all demos go online once a day. They spend more time per week online than in front of TV now. 90% have mobiles. The decision to see a movie now is split between a friend in their clique telling them and the actual storyline itself. The bottom line is they are getting all their information primarily via online and mobile. Obvious but then why are studios only spending a pittance of their marketing budgets online?
Because it takes a lot to move a mountain. They are very much tied into their old ways and refuse to make the changes they should.
Awhile back I was inspired by a clever young Auckland media student named Michael Chal who took an assignment about raising online awareness to dizzying new heights when he pretended to auction sexy photos of his Mother on the online auction site TradeMe. Chal ended up being covered by every newspaper and tv news show in NZ. It was perhaps a little deceitful but most kiwis saw the humour in it and as an experiment it was phenomenally successful.
So the idea came to me, instead of spending the tiny marketing budget on old media to alert NZ fans about REC2 (the $7500 budget would be absorbed by a couple of NZ Herald ads and a tiny radio campaign) why don’t I just give away nearly all the marketing cash (some saved for web design and misc) as a prize to someone who creates the most Buzz about the films release.
So this will be an experiment to see if we can get some people along to see this small film without spending a fortune. If it works it means that perhaps we can rely on social networks to help local films and that we aren’t beholden to old media dinosaurs who charge a fortune for a dying delivery system.
So even if you don’t submit something to our contest (but you really should) maybe you can pass the word about the $5k giveaway. Maybe text or tweet or bebo or Facecrack it to someone. By doing one small thing you are contributing to the wave of buzz about REC2 and for that I thank you.
Speak up or forever see small cool films debut on dvd.
And so here I am with a briefcase of $5000 cash and looking for some clever person to take it from me.
(PS: To all would be robbers and thieves, I don’t have the $5000 at home - it’s at the bank!)
