There's been a lot of comment lately on the effectiveness or otherwise of the marketing campaigns for many Australian films. It should go without saying that campaigns need to start early in a bid to build awareness. Yet too often local films seem to be chucked out at the last minute, missing all kinds of media opportunities in the process.
In some cases - such as Jonathan Ogilvie's peculiarly non-arousing boxing noir, The Tender Hook, which opened recently to the sound of empty cash registers - you have to wonder if the film is being delberately dumped onto the market due to a lack of confidence from the distributor. (Which in this case would be understandable.)
Here's another example of a film being set up to fail. Three days ago (ie. October 3) I received an email "to let you know that the NEWCASTLE film website is now live.
Check out www.newcastlemovie.com for the run down on the film, the cast and images. Please contact me for any interview requests. The film will release nationally on November 6th."
The distributor certainly started screening this surfing drama early to reviewers - I saw it at least two months ago. So far so good. But where was the website? Put up pnly now - four weeks before the film's release? I have to say that's pitiful.
As for that line about interview requests, that comes about a month too late to meet most monthly periodicals' deadlines.
Here's an extract from an email I sent (in my capacity as a monthly periodical reviewer) to another independent distributor this morning regarding an upcoming Australian documentary that I saw last week. It's being released at the end of this month, ie. October.
"Thanks for the (screening)invite, it was a great film and would have received an enthusiastic review from me.
"However yet again this is another good film being screened that has MISSED our monthly deadline! We're working on the December issue now - not October.
"With so many independent and Australian films struggling at the box office, you'd think distributors would redouble their efforts to make sure they get reviewed. Yet if anything it seems to be becoming even harder to see films in time to meet our deadlines!
"Could you please kindly pass this message onto distributors and producers you deal with?"
(image: torontoist.com)
3 comments:
i agree. its such an ironic sense of unprofessionalism. sometimes i wonder if distributors or film publicists were born yesterday when they request publicity on such a short notice from monthly publications... it's not that the media doesn't want to help the floundering film industry, it's that they can't help themselves with common sense...
yeah... I've heard about this film on the grapevine and thought they would have the marketing side sussed after raising such a good budget and getting good o/s festival screenings.
I've got a feature to release sans distributor - it would be great to know what the right way to do the promotion is... if you have time... -toby [at] camerabloke [dot] net- ta...
re: that newcastle email i also received and followed to the woeful thrown together website, it also arrived via email! What i mean by that is there was no phone call, no follow up, nothing apart from a too late email which almost got lost in my inbox.
like toby said. this thing got good enough reviews at the festival (tribeca?) it played at, but i bet the distributor will not use this whatsoever.
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