Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Ahhh Mod 2 stuffs.. here we go peeps

1 – BLAIR WITCH THING

The Blair Witch project was amongst the first productions to embrace the wide range of medias and platforms which define what digital video is. On the one hand, the film/documentary itself was shot on digital camera (and 16mm film in part), which allowed the audience to identify with the characters more easily – giving the production a home movie type appeal and adding to its realistic documentary visual appeal. Secondly the use of an ARG like website used primarily as a marketing device well before the movie was ever finished was to say the least brilliant. For one thing the website acted as exposition for the story of the Blair Witch and heightened suspense for the release of the production. Furthermore it gave audiences insights into the story and allowed them to develop something of an urban-legend amongst themselves whilst filtering information back to the film-makers of what their intended audience was expecting. This only further helped to heighten interest in the project – which was for the time being had formed its own myth and was being perceived as an actual event that had actually occurred to 3 film students. In effect the Blair Witch production had formed a niche audience for itself and instilled it with an urban legend which was still unsolved. In doing so Blair witch aligned itself alongside a very short list of films which had used cross-platform marketing to raise interest in the production whilst forming a community of online peeps who would be loyal fans upon its release.

2 – TRIGGER STREE THING

Visually the site is a mess – gotta say its pretty hard to get around – theres just so much content thats been packed into it like a sardine can, that it makes it unbearable to say the least. However, all the visuals aside, as a concept I think this is a seriously awesome site. It gives budding scriptwriters and film makers a chance to engage a niche audience whom they can get feedback from in order to better hone their skills and improve their craft. Furthermore it provides their material some serious exposure, while at the same time forcing them to review others work – something which would definitely benefit them in doing comparative studies with their own work. A further functionality it offers is keeping these potential employees in the film making community upto date with recent news that would be of interest to them; while allowing them an opportunity to meet other budding artists whom they could possibly collaborate with in future. I think this is a great site just to get exposure and meet new people while using its resources as a test audience for concepts and potential future collaborative projects...

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