Multimedia Monsters

I meet Arin and Susan last Friday at the British Film Institute in the Southbank. We are in a seminar organised by the BFI called “Power to the Pixel”. If you are not a young twenty-something from the US, or do not watch indie films, this combination of names will mean zilch to you. If, on the other hand, you are an Internet savvy Britonnian (I think I just invented that word) into shortfilms, you’ll have heard about their opera prima “Four Eyed Monsters” and the storm it created across the pond. Both filmmakers, tired of being refused a distribution deal even when their film was getting press and audience recognition at festivals, decided to “throw the toys out of the pram”. Arin & Susan took it to the web and called their audiences to arms by orchestrating theatrical releases across the nation, thus by-passing distributors. This is the one where two young things take over one of the most Jurassic industries these days - film distribution, and beat it ruthlessly over the head with the weapons of choice: the Internet, mobile texting, a social network of worldwide fans (and their emails and postcodes!)

“Four Eyed Monsters” is the typical film school final year project, beautifully shot at times and with a sweet script showing good quality story telling…. but expect no Oscar or BAFTAS nominations here. What grabs you about the filmmakers and their product is the way they marketed it through an array of channels: the web, mobile and guerrilla stunts on the streets. At the BFI seminar, I could feel the fear predating the soul of every distributor present in the room… The puzzled look of disbelief in every filmmaker witnessing their multi-media presentation, as Arin & Susan’s wizardly knowledge of technology+cum+marketing proved to be more and more awesome. Filmmakers, the ones who brought you James Bond and his futuristic gadgets, tend to produce mobile phones out of their pockets that look like they’ve been through the 90 degree washing cycle. To them, words like podcasts, myspace, and flickr are as removed from their world as designer clothes, hair grooming and healthy food on set…

In “Four Eyed Monsters” Arin and Susan recreate their love story through videotaping themselves, together or individually. The takes, scripted or unscripted, become their life, their struggles to release their film theatrically, the quest to achieve… All this on the web became their communication channel with their audience, a whole nation of youngsters who resonated not just with the film itself, but with the marketing medium used to promote it. Fans of the film spread the word throughout their networks and some even helped the filmmakers achieve theatrical releases even in the smallest, honky-tonk towns.

If you want to know how frustrating the film industry is, seventy per cent of cinema seats in the UK go unsold on a weekly basis. Shocking, you may say. The average number of viewers to a given theatrical session is seven. In Arin and Susan’s case, up to seventy people watched their film online concurrently. Not only the audience tuned to the web to watch the three chapters of the film, but it co-created …. (ah, the magical behaviour that every brand aspires their customers to do).

Audiences posted back videotapes of themselves talking to camera, pouring their souls, venting their frustrations, finding the Arin & Susan story the proof that they, sitting in their bedrooms, were not the only ones wanting to connect to another human being, not just wanting to live an extraordinary life through technology, drawings, quirky notes on post-its… but also knowing how to react to such channel of communication. This is where the purchase price of myspace begins to make a whole-lotta sense and when de-centralised networks of motivated individuals can take over the Pilsbury Man (Ben & Jerry’s leap to corporate fame) or make a young doctor from Izmir the guest speaker at Oracle’s Christmas party in 1999…

Blyk is a mobile product coming to an audience that thrives the visual medium. And Blyk is betting on the power of attraction of visual images as a communication element. In today’s society, younger and younger people are shooting footage on videocam to later on load it up onto myspace & co., podcasting from their bedrooms or getting their songs on iTunes. Does this sound like your idea of social chaos? Or more to the point, are you aware of how strong technology is empowering young people to control marketing  itself these days….?(!)

They may seem like monsters to you, if your business is challenged, I would agree. But I must warn you this is going to get bigger, and will do my best Poltergeist little voice to announce to you: “They’re heeeeeeere….”

Entry Filed under: Counterculture In technology