There have been several creative approaches to using ARGs and ARG-like promotions for independent film. The rational for using ARGs as a promotional tool is the high cost of conventional advertising, marketing and distribution for film. Lance Weiler, an independent filmmaker has created ARGs for both his films, The Last Broadcast (1998) and Head Trauma (2006). In both of these films he tried to take the narrative out of the film and weave it into an alternative narrative online in order to attract an audience.
The Last Broadcast (1998)
This small, independent film followed a documentary filmmaker as he investigates the murders of two cable show hosts. The film pre-dated The Blair Witch Project (1999) and is very similar in terms of the way the story was handled. The story was about some public broadcasters who disappear while investigating the paranormal. The broadcasters had planned a trip into the forests of New Jersey to look for the legendary New Jersey Devil. They had planned to connect with the real world using chat and webcams while they were on location. This left the story open to a wide range of media that could have been produced during the fictional event.
The film producers for The Last Broadcast had few resources for promoting and marketing the film. In an attempt to get some buzz about the movie, they set up a website so that it would appear that the murders were real. The media created wasn’t really a game; it was designed to engage viewers in the narrative. From that point, the website would become a jumping off point for the film.
Head Trauma (2006)
(http://www.headtraumamovie.com/)
Initial Film release
In a following project, Weiler decided to create a campaign to promote Head Trauma that went beyond a simple marketing campaign. He didn’t have a distributor for the film and had to figure out how he was going to gather audiences on his own.
He began by creating a public event where the film would be presented. He then tried to create a community vibe around the screening. He wanted to create a cinema event that was unique, rather than the same each time you viewed the film.
The event consists of three core elements:
1. A screening of Head Trauma with a live soundtrack performance by Bardo Pond, Espers, Fern Knight, Marshal Allen (Sun Ra), Steve Garvey (Buzzcocks) and others. The live music was done in conjunction with the recorded dialog and sound effects tracks from the film. It created a new alternate soundtrack.
2. To tie the film to the live event, various props and sets from the film were set on stage and certain characters from the film emerged from the audience.
3. A phone number would appear on the screen during the film. When viewers called the number, they were actually being drawn into the first rabbit hole of the ARG.
What followed the initial live event was a number of cryptic clues that the audience were asked to decipher. The ongoing interaction involved phone calls and text messages from the characters of Head Trauma that led viewers to hidden clues spread across the Internet.
Weiler’s goal was to change the cinematic experience. He wanted to take a narrative and move it across multiple devices and screens. This included podcasts, an interactive graphic novel and numerous hidden elements within the websites linked to the film. In this way, he wanted to engage the audience in new and different ways. Some viewers have given the name “Cinema ARG” to this new cluster of media. The response so far has been exceptional. In terms of mechanics, the live event show was very difficult to scale to take it to more places.
Rather than writing and creating all of these ARG elements after the film was finished, they wrote the entire time they were shooting film. They also needed to create digital content for the web at the same time. This digital content affected what and how they were shooting. They needed to have narrative elements available for both the film and the ARG and do so under a tight budget. This required them to think about how they were telling narrative strands across multiple media throughout the entire film creation projects. There was a set narrative for the ARG but the team didn’t stop once they had finished the writing and content creation. They needed to deal with the community that engaged in the ARG, seeing how they responded and shift the story in response to the audience.
Once the film was completed the producers started the traditional approach of taking the film into the film festival circuit. They did not believe they could think about traditional distribution though. The independent film market has changed. It has eroded and become congested with the sheer volume of films available. Festivals used to be a place to get a distribution deal but currently that is not the best place to strike a deal as the terms for the deals favour the buyers. This in mind, the producers went into the LA film festival thinking about self-distribution.
They looked at doing a platform release where the movie would be available in DVD five weeks after the theatrical release. This is unusual as most independent film go out onto the festival circuit for a year or so. Weiler decided to push the movie out faster. In order to do this he needed to get press coverage as a way to get some notice of the film.
The promotion continued throughout the release with promotion at film festivals where a small comic book was handed out with the words “Do you want to play a game?” written on the back with a phone number. When the number was called, the phone would be answered by the evil, antagonist character from the film. The caller’s phone number would be captured after they called in and the ARG would then call them back. The antagonist from the film would then tell them they shouldn’t have hung up because “we’re not finished yet”. From this initial point, the players were drawn into a narrative from the film, with a goal of piquing enough interest that they would actually seek out the film for viewing.
Warner Video on Demand Release “Hope is Missing” ARG
Weiler negotiated a contract with Warner to release the film on their Video on Demand (VOD) service. He decided to create a new ARG specifically to promote the film within that service. This led him to the idea of created a new ARG called Hope is Missing. The film was well beyond release so all the actors were gone and he had to come up with a new way of extending the story line. He created a new story around a character named Hope Wilcott. It was set in the same fictional universe as the original Head Trauma story. In the story, Hope is away at school and starts getting phone calls at 3:07 am every morning from her mother. The phone calls sound as if her mother is in trouble. Hope calls the Police mother has no recollection of the call being made. Hope goes home to discover that her mother has some strange nocturnal behaviours. The story continues when Hope’s fiancé gets a letter saying Hope has now disappeared. The letter comes with a package with a video and clues within the video. He puts the video up online and asks people to help him figure out where Hope has gone. Weiler released 4 short movies over 2 1/2 weeks. He had planned to stretch it out longer but interest in the story and demand for content required him to accelerate the timeline.
This ARG proved to be a successful promotion to build interest around the VOD release of Head Trauma with Warner Brothers. The impact among the audience was mixed. Some people thought it was real while others thought it was a hoax. The story of the disappearance and the way it was delivered did end up offending some of the people who viewed it.
Implications for Independent Film
Weiler fully believes in the concept of expanded cinema. It is more than just a traditional film. Once you start thinking this way and the property becomes expanded, it changes the writing, the funding options and affects distribution as well. By promoting directly to the audience of the film, it puts the property into the hands of the viewers looking for that content. For Weiler, ARGs have been the most cost effective way for him to get to that audience while maintaining creative and financial control of his creative properties.
As ARGs are a new form of narrative for most filmmakers, many of them are not familiar with it. It is unlikely that all of the current approaches to ARGs cover the full range of creative opportunities for filmmakers. Some of the current uses include the pre-selling of the film by getting an audience before the actual film release. The ARG can serve as a discovery mechanism for the narrative, characters and setting of the film. This personal level of engagement allows the filmmaker to connect with their audience before they have even seen the film.
The lack of a single distribution mechanism means that independent filmmakers are looking at a challenging mixture of broadcast options. Theatres, VOD, online download, streaming and rental venues are all potential distribution channels for a film. Each of these has a potential audience that can only be reached through the marketing channels provided by each of those broadcast option. The filmmaker faces a very fragmented audience among all of those options. This means that one film needs to stand out among all the white noise and the reduced amount of time most people have to filter through it. An ARG is one method of tying together that audience. It allows the film budget and creative team energies to be focused on one marketing campaign instead of trying to dilute the marketing among a number of different channels.
It is also possible to integrate branding and product placement into the ARG campaign in a more transparent way than usual. You aren’t required to use obvious product placement throughout your film. This will present the filmmaker with new offerings during the fundraising portion of the film production.
Independent film has always had a huge amount of creative energy in place to break down barriers to both making and distributing film. The introduction of digital film creation and distribution were explored successfully early on as an alternative to film stock. The high cost of celluloid made it almost impossible for independent filmmakers to make films affordably. Exclusive distribution through established markets made it very difficult to actually distribute the film once it was made. The drive to maintain creative and financial control of their films meant that new solutions were constantly being developed to deal with the issues. ARGs are one of the latest options and successful independent filmmakers will continue to explore their abilities to share narratives and engage their audiences. It is possible that with the cross-media approach to narrative being taken by independent film that filmmaking may not even be an appropriate term anymore.
