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What would Transmedia look like for a Paul Thomas Anderson film?

Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) is the ueber “indie filmmaker”… he has writen, produced and directed almost every single one of his films. Control Freak? Possibly… Artist? Probably.
He frequently works with the same people, always has strangely magnetic characters invade his images and has been awarded or nominated for every award that exists in the film world (although maybe due to his youngness, he seems to always be surpassed by other “masters”).

This is where his latest film comes in.

Production for – The Master – started last year and since then (June), very little has been known about the film other than it being about “an intellectual that starts a religion in the 1950’s”. Slowly people started associating the possible story with scientology (denied by the director) and after the announcement of Joaquin Phoenix as the lead in the film (Phillip Seymour Hoffman also stars), with all the craziness surrounding his previous work (Phoenix did a “Chris Farley/Christian Bale” 2 years ago and went nuts on screen/off screen with I’m Still Here), some started being afraid the movie was “out there”.

Good.

Nothing better than a difficult movie to see to make one’s the juices flow.

But how do you advertise for it?

Modern film campaigns, in the US, have been largely targeting a young audience and so, “brainy”, difficult films, always tend to be sorely represented in the marketing/media world (most are certainly backwashed into the market after or little before the Oscars, so they get attached to the coat tails of that billion viewer event).

Such an example was easily demonstrated by PTA’s previous film There Will Be Blood – a 25 million dollar production (with a severely lacking media/screening campaign), that was for the most part, one of the best films of the year (2007/2008), released for oscar classification on the last week of December, relatively badly received in the B.O. just before the Oscars’ live event (the film was steadily in the 2 digit ranks) and then pushed everywhere after the middle of February and its interest during the Oscars (8 nominations). This gave the movie a solid B.O. (box office) for a cerebral, period film – 76 million dollars, but it would have gone relatively unnoticed wasn’t it for the awards season.

PTA, this time around, doesn’t want this to happen.

Trailers are the center piece of almost any “modern” campaign and, with the quality of some of their editing, almost every film that is advertised through a trailer “leaked” on facebook/youtube/twitter, is “going to be awesome!!!”. But that doesn’t happen.
Trailers adulterate, distort and flourish most films that they advertise and… most of the time… falsely advertise a film that no one (or very few) actually want to see. 

…

The Master was presented last year (in poster form) at Cannes as “The Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project”. That (like for most oscar campaign films) was the first tease.
Then came the second poster. And the third.

So then, PTA to get the public’s interest peeked, came out with not 1 but 2 unconventional teasers (“Was there a fight?” and “Hopelessly Inquisitive”) in the space of  a month, this, before he had ever shown the film to any critic around the world (just a limited footage screening in Cannes, this year).
At this point, the Weinstein Company (the production company had previously passed on producing the film) was intrigued and bought the international rights for the film.

Not soon later, a theatrical trailer for it came out (… thank you… Weinstein Company… for “keeping things common”), and several “secret screenings” have been held.

With the trailer out, my thinking was that it was just another “teaser campaign” with the 2 previously released clips being just a “drop in the water” of the “what could have been” Transmedia/New media campaign.

But it wasn’t.

Yesterday, another one came out – “I lost my ship!”

4 have come out in total. Together they make about 6 minutes of footage.

Rumor is, these videos are “cuts”, “extra footage” or simply “raw footage” that didn’t make it to the film.
It isn’t unknown to come out with dropped footage before a film screens in theaters, but this is usually thrown together into the theatrical, teaser trailers.

No one wants to show pieces of their films for free… but PTA doesn’t want you to go see a film you don’t want to see. He’s giving you exactly what you want. A real look at what The Master is and not what an editing (subverting) team, can make it look like through “masterful” editing/sound manipulating techniques.

But he’s doing it differently. He’s not showing you the film.

He’s showing pieces that didn’t enter the puzzle.

He’s showing you content that isn’t in the final product.

…

Trailer

“Was there a fight?”

Hopelessly Inquisitive

She wrote me a letter

“I lost my ship!”

…

Do you want to see the film? Maybe… at least you can see from the videos how the pacing, style and acting will be like… so… you choose.

Not a tough choice. It might not be your type of film but, at least, you can definitely decide if it is worth it or not.

Nevertheless… If more of an example of how off quilt the campaign for the film is…

Check the film’s official page – http://www.themasterfilm.com/

Simple.

It just shows us what the film looks like through video/youtube form. Period.

Do you want to see the official poster?

Simple.

A trend flows through the videos, poster, website.

Simplicity.

And not the usual “bullshit” of Augmented advertising that comes out every single week. With manipulating coloring schemes, face/body positioning and loads of unwanted visual information.

And then there’s Twitter.

If there ever was a film that is being helped by its Twitter comments (reviews) it might just be The Master.

It’s getting rave reviews from the surprise showcases in the beginning of the month (and the August 3rd Venice 1st Screening), having more critics, fans, etc, wanting to see it as fast as possible.

So much so that the Weinstein Company has decided to come out with the film on limited release on September 14th (almost a full month before its original release date).

Yes… I know what you’re thinking. “This isn’t Transmedia!”, “He’s just using the same techniques everyone does”… “That’s already stuff from the film, not developed for different media”.

True on all counts.

But you must remember… change takes time… and these small videos show exactly that.

Something is changing.

It might not be a “true” Transmedia campaign but, it certainly is different.

And interesting to watch.

Don’t believe me?

The Official Trailer has, to date, 444,605 views.

Was there a fight – 780,900 views.

Hopelessly Inquisitive – 31,000 views.

She Wrote me a Letter – 111,489 views.

I lost my ship – 306 (still under youtube’s calculation period).

The 4 clips would have eventually come out. Probably on DVD/Bluray and then posted online.

Then… why not benefit from them?

They have together around 1 million views.

That might not be a transmedia campaign or product, but its getting there.

It’s changing the norm.

Let’s hope more directors, producers, studios, think of ways they can innovate in how they present their films and then, maybe, for his next film, Paul Thomas Anderson might go all out and present us with a complete transmedia film.

Here’s hoping.

Leave it to the Russians (QR Code Extravaganza!)

Full disclosure… I hate QR codes.

Yes, they serve a purpose, and so far, from what exists in the market, they are “revolutionizing” how brands communicate and “interact” with their customers (this of course is a pleonasm as the only one doing any interaction is the user… not the brand).

But…

They are esthetically unpleasing, sometimes bulky and attention deviating, most of the time extremely badly utilized in where they are presented and ultimately, bothersome.

A QR code, to me, looks (and feels) like a barcode – extremely effective in keeping track of a given product in a production line, but occupying premium advertising space in the cover/package of any well-developed object/content persona.

Barcodes… they are scanned by a laser reader, right? In a conveyer belt, right? Wouldn’t it be cool if we all could scan a QR code in the conveyer belt of daily life? Wait… what am I saying… of course we can.

Let me see:

 What is that over there in the corner? The lower left-hand corner… Is it… YES!!! I believe it is! A perfectly located and strategically poised QR code (the lower left-hand corner is by far, the worst place you can locate a QR code, but in this advert, since the supposedly readable text is in the left, whomever developed the ad thought people would be easily directed to it).

…

Let me see if I can scan it:

Hmm… no… too far… but I really wanted to know what Emperor Qianlong’s concubines are doing… OK… let me walk a few steps to another advert and try again:

Closer Diogo… don’t be afraid to go closer! It’s nothing but an MTR train line between you and the enormous portal of knowledge that a QR is – and a train coming in 2 minutes. If you fall, it’ll be for the greater good!!!

SUCCESS! I can see the code in the camera! Let me go just a bit closer…

Damn… blurry image.

 Train comes… I’ve just lost 3 minutes of my life trying to scan a little sequence of squares and dots 3 meters away (and no… the fault wasn’t my phone or my hands… the camera can see some of the mountains in the moon in a clear night and I’m pretty steady with my hands, so I’d think both would be good enough to scan something that’s so close ahead of them).

But I don’t give up. That’s just not my style (hmm we’ll let that slide). On the next train stop, I see this marvel:

 I scan it and it directs me to a facebook page… Eureka! But… wait… it’s the same facebook page that right next to the code is perfectly advertised by a Facebook logo and the search query a user would make to find the product in the social network.

I start thinking… it’s just me. I must be stupid. Or rather, technologically impaired.

So I continue:

Yes. Right-hand corner. You see it. I see it. I scan it. Failure… The rim of the ad space glass/metal cover  is obstructing half of the code.

I walk a few steps out in my stop and…

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

So. Much. AWESOMENESS!!!

But wait!?! Which one should I scan?

The Ultra-Big-Awesome-Eye-Popping one to the left? Or the once again (Cof Cof) strategically located, one to the left?

I’m incompetent… I know… I scan both. Same page. Both of them. Success!

2 out of 5 ads in one night take me to a desired page. A “more information” page. A “trackable page”. An advertising, market strategy, mobile justifiable java enabled page.

I get out of the MTR glad from my evening’s successful advertisement consumer enterprise. Right next to my apartment entrance what do I see (I live in Mongkok so this wasn’t entirely unexpected):

Another code.

At this stage I’m tired of the previous ordeal. I still try to scan it; too far away; go close to it; too far away; change to the camera not the scanner; take a picture; blow it up and… give up. But I think in the back of my head “I’ll just test it when I get home”.

And then it hits me.

Weren’t QR’s developed so advertisers could track and test out which costumers were willing to search for their products online? The ones that would be as interested to buy or at least learn about the product? The ones who would go to the trouble to take their phone out of their pocket, direct it at the ad, locate the QR, open the app, scan the image, wait for the page load and then get to where they (the advertisers) were trying to get them?

Yes… yes they were… but I’m a lazy consumer. I went to my browser, searched for the product name and I got all the information I needed to find me interested or not in the Vaio. I even got 2 pages that had pretty interesting reviews on the product and a great video advert from Japan, something that I didn’t get when I ultimately tested out the Code – it took me to the official page of the product – a page where the most valuable information I got was the price in HK dollars and some of the specs of the product.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying QR Codes are evil or that they should be completely discarded from any and all physical/digital adverts existing in Hong Kong.

In an ideal world I’d just scan an ad (any ad) and the scanner would take me to the same place as a QR code (this exists, of course, but the technology is still in its early stages of “Augmented Reality Development”).

I’m just saying… If you go through the trouble of setting up a Code link, at least give me, the customer, some valuable information, enticing information, attention grabbing information on my mobile device.

Something that makes it worthwhile to go through the trouble of the situation that some customers might be put through while being “guided” by your market strategies. 

Confirm that the package where you put your product and your code, don’t have enough gloss to almost make the customer go to a dark alley so they can scan your code (all criticism aside, this code takes you into the Apple Store where you can download a pretty neat app that further augments the experience of eating Skittles and advertising it – pushing it – to your network of Facebook/Twitter friends – by making you a Skittle-faced customer!).

Ohh… and by the way…. When you do put a QR Code on your product, a difficult to find, almost completely impossible to scan Code on it – Make it have fun content behind it.

Like the Skittles thing. But take it further.

I’ll give you an example. Sure… an extreme example, but a fun example nonetheless.

2 Months ago, out of nowhere, the advertising campaign for Branded started appearing in zee interwebs. Branded looks like a weird, weird experience for the movie goer, so they developed a great little advancement to their story &ndas
h; Branded content through QR Code dissemination – 100 QR Codes to be exact, the idea behind it is that the audience by interacting actively in their weird, advertised, universe, they’ll slowly see what the movie might be about (the global distortion of perception, advanced and perpertraited by big Branded companies).

And where can you see them? Their trailers, their posters, their everything!

Give it a try (this is the first trailer of the campaign):

Can’t get any? I’ll help you with one of the pages:

But wait… there’s more, lots more… if you look hard enough, you’ll find them.

It takes time. It’s a pain to stop the videos. It’s frustrating at times but, you’re watching something new. Something that doesn’t appear if you search it online. New content. A new experience. You’re augmenting the experience of watching the trailer for a film. You’re using a QR Code the right way. The although hard and confusing, satisfactory way.

Here’s more (on the second trailer the codes are even harder to scan):

Once again. Stop the video. Can’t get them?

Here are some of them:

Like I said… if you do use QR Codes – Make them fun.

Or else…

Leave it to the Russians.