David Jon Banks and Professor Jeff Parkin, Department of Theatre and Media Arts
This project set out to explore, identify, and harness strategy and implementation of social marketing for low-budget and student film online distribution. Taking from previous examples and small-scale testing, a lot has been learned. The biggest lesson learned? Just how much my student colleagues and I underestimated the vastness of social marketing. The growing world of social media has been constantly expanding, and the rules change every day. As such, our project has had to adapt, and deadlines were pushed back, to accommodate for all of the new information we have gathered.
A report on progress:
The main objective of this project, as stated in the application, is to explore how social networking and new media can be used to extend the reach of student and independent filmmakers. Our method was to create an independent film project, designed specifically for web release. Everywhere we read, the accord was astounding: Content is King1, making it critical that we put the necessary time and effort into developing worthwhile content.
We spent a year (starting in June 2010) writing the story, researching ideal length and presentation. We viewed hours of existing web series. A few points were clear: there needed to be real story and character development; audiences were willing to watch more than five minutes (and less than five minutes usually turned them off); low budget web productions that tried to look big-budget tended to flop. We settled on an 11-episode web series, each episode approximately 15 minutes in length. We also decided to embrace low budget by adapting a first-person diagetic camera style.
Three-fourths of the series was shot during July and August of 2011 (almost half of it shot in two weeks). Given the production style, that was impressive. With a diagetic camera (a camera that is present in the narrative, similar to The Blair Witch Project2 or Cloverfield3) and a fast-paced, guerilla shooting style, the cast and crew overlapped almost completely. The show was shot and directed by myself, who also needed to play a character in the story. My co-writer also acted, and another main actor acted as a Unit Production Manager. When the semester started again, shooting of the last fourth-or-so was delayed, and efforts and attention were shifted to our release strategy.
This is the point where reevaluation became necessary. We had underestimated the impact that school would have on our production schedule. We were behind. Our original strategy had been to begin releasing episodes starting in September. New revelations seemed to preclude this option. First, the nature of online interaction is that people are impatient. Social media has created a pattern of immediacy, and we needed to seriously consider if releasing 15 minutes a week would be too slow. Even if we released one episode a week, that would require us to edit and release while still in production, leaving a nearly impossible window to wrap up the end of the series. We wiped the drawing board clean.
Stepping back, we looked at the project very objectively. The show had been written and designed as one large two-hour story separated into 11 parts. Releasing a weekly episode could very well undermine the momentum of the show, as it had been designed as one big story, rather than a tradition episodic design. Compensations in the production of the show had left weak areas. In order for the social marketing side of the project to be successful, we had to ensure that the content created would not undermine all other efforts. We considered re-writing episodes. We considered scrapping the show and starting over. The answer we settled on was an entire re-structuring of the narrative. The show is a faux-documentary, and originally played out very linearly point A leads to point B leads to point C. Instead, we decided to edit the show non-linearly (examples would be The Prestige4 or Memento5, directed by Christopher Nolan), where the story would start with point B, then skip back to point A, and then, jumping around chronologically, would fill in the gaps between point A and B to catch up and push through to point C. This eliminated some of the story still left to film (it would be out of place, and redundant). As well as restructuring the story, we restructured the release. Instead of 11 episodes, there will be 6, longer in length, with two released a week for three weeks.
As far as when the show will be aired, in order to avoid competition with television seasons and BYU’s academic calendar, the episodes will be released in May 2012, filling the interim between winter and summer TV series runs.
Further exploration will continue on how to reach a wide audience. Small-scale tests are being run with Provo-local band music videos6 (produced and released by myself). Also, I am involved with the current restructuring of social marketing strategy for BYU Arts Creative, the marketing office for BYU’s fine arts events.
I will also be assisting Jeff Parkin with an additional new web series project going into production this coming semester. Though funded by Deseret Book, it is still very independent and exploratory. We hope to compare the effectiveness of this large-scale project, my mid-sized project, and the small-scale music videos in order to have a firm, holistic grasp on the power and utility of social marketing.
References
- “7 Roadblocks to a Successful Social Marketing Campaign,” Douglas Idugboe. Smedio.com <http://smedio.com/2011/11/07/7-roadblocks-to-a-successful-social-media-campaign/>
- Film: The Blair Witch Project (1999), dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
- Film: Cloverfield (2008), dir. J. J. Abrams
- Film: The Prestige (2006), dir. Christopher Nolan
- Film: Memento (2002), dir. Christopher Nolan
- Example music video: “Frankly My Dear,” dir. David Jon Banks, performed by Ruts and Weeds http://youtu.be/v35buSjN-sA