Week Four: Folks and Experts

The notion of the Professional/Amateur divide is a very relevant topic when it comes to film making.  The popularity of using the internet as a tool for promotion and mass marketing of films, ultimately blurs the line between professionally made films, and amateur films made on a small budget.  It no longer seems to matter whether there is a lot of money going into the film and whether it’s being made by ‘folks or experts’, but similar results can be achieved through the integration of web2.0 into the marketing process.

A comparisson can be made between the hollywood blockbuster film Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) and the recent Australian horror film Undead (Michael and Peter Spierig, 2003) (IMDB, 2009).  Both films are completely worlds apart.  Cloverfield was made on a budget of over $25 million (Sarafin, 2008), whilst Undead was made on nothing more than money donated by friends and family of the directors.  Both movies became cult sensations, even though they both came from completely different production backgrounds.  Could the reason for this be that they both used web2.0 to their advantage when marketing the films?

Cloverfield and Undead are just two examples of how web2.0 is slowly bridging the Pro/Am divide.  Through the use of viral marketing online, cult-like fanbases develop and therefore lead to the rise of popularity among these movies.  The advantage of using the internet as a tool for promotion is that anyone can do it as long as they know how to.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a student film maker or a professional Hollywood director.  Strategies may be different, but the end results are often surprisingly similar.  For example, Cloverfield chose to create an entire viral marketing scenario through different websites making it seem like the events in the movie were actually happening in real life.  Fake news report videos, fake websites, and so forth were created in order to intrigue potential viewers and get people talking about the upcoming film.  Undead on the other hand took a different approach.  Instead of creating an entire viral marketing campaign, the directors relied on word of mouth to spread about their film.  Posting home-made trailers and promoting their film on movie forums created an interest in the film, and through their hard work they got the attention of potential viewers just like Cloverfield did.

This leads to a problem though.  Even though the Pro/Am divide may be blurring, there are still differences between the two.  In this example, there is a definite indication of who has more finances available to them, and it becomes obvious who has the advantage when it comes to marketing and promotion (Hartley, 2007).  Whilst Cloverfield has the finances to create an entire viral campaign that blends reality with the film, Undead can only afford to promote the film through more conventional means.

Though the process may be different, and may cost different amounts of money, they both seem to provide the same results.  The end result is always that the film garners a cult-like following, and through this it’s popularity rises exponentially. So even though there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between ‘folks and experts’ in this particular marketing aspect of the film industry, it is clear that whoever has more money, still has more opportunities.

References:

Hartley, S. 2007. The Pro-Am Divide: Time to build bridges. http://ukboxing.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/the-pro-am-divide-time-to-build-bridges (Accessed May 18th, 2009)

IMDB. 2009. http://www.imdb.com (Accessed May 18th, 2009)

Sarafin, J. 2008. Cloverfield Monster Attacks January Records: Mania. http://www.mania.com/cloverfield-monster-attacks-january-records_article_57201.html (Accessed May 19th, 2009)