[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
If Robert Rodriguez didn t exist, independent filmmakers would have to
invent him an unknown 23-year-old makes a terrific first feature for $7,000,
is snapped up by ICM, signed to a two-picture deal by Columbia, and then
applauded at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals.34
Picked up by Time Magazine the against-all-odds story of Rodriguez and
El Mariachi continued to circulate:
Now all Hollywood is calling Rodriguez because Columbia Pictures is distribut-
ing his movie. Not bad for a 24-year-old who raised nearly half the film s budget
(okay, $3,000) by serving as a lab rat in a medical-research project in his home-
town of Austin, Texas.35
And MovieMaker recounted a similar success story about Scott Mosier and
Kevin Smith in a 1993 article, stating in the opening paragraph:
Now signed to feature deals with Universal and Miramax, Smith and Mosier s
début offers the hope that even in the studio-controlled multiplex jungle,
any nobody who makes a good movie even without money, experience or
connections can have their big time moviemaking dreams fall right into their
lap.36
Such narratives translated well into mass-media forms and, in addition
to Rodriguez and Mosier and Smith, the breakthrough successes of
others such as Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee and Daniel Myrick, and
Eduardo Sánchez, and particularly Quentin Tarantino, offered similar
opportunities for rags-to-riches stories of filmmakers working outside the
Hollywood system and remaining true to their personal vision. In this
sense, the indie filmmaker success story reduced a diverse range of prac-
tices, activities, aesthetics and ideologies into a narrative of independence
that had resonance in the popular media, thereby offering the potential to
affiliate the mainstream media to the independent marketing apparatus.
Whilst such stories offered coherence to a varied set of independent
practices, disapproval of the continual reworking of the struggling inde-
pendent filmmaker narrative highlighted tensions between the various
institutional definitions of independence.37 Criticisms were levelled at
institutions such as the Independent Feature Project (IFP), founded in
1979 as a non-profit organisation for independent filmmakers, for pro-
moting the myth of the rags-to-riches tale of the first-time filmmaker
and ignoring political distinctions between filmmakers and filmmak-
ing practices in their quarterly publication Filmmaker.38 The magazine,
36 Memento
established in 1992, claimed to be by filmmakers, on filmmakers, for
filmmakers .39 However, critics of Filmmaker argued that independent
filmmaking should remain true to an ideal of active and self-conscious
opposition to dominant media practices at every level technologically,
institutionally, aesthetically, economically and politically a position
that drew heavily on a discourse of independence associated with the
New American Cinema.40 Whilst Filmmaker avoided politics in favour of
what it referred to as a postmodern view of independent film that can
herald filmmakers as diverse as Quentin Tarantino to Nina Menkes ,
a publication such as Cineaste, which claimed its position as America s
leading magazine on the art and politics of the cinema , represented the
opposite discourse.
In a 1999 editorial Cineaste attacked the marketing practices of
Miramax, October Films and Artisan, arguing that film hype had
reached such levels that its rhetorical power severely delimited an audi-
ence s opportunity to judge a film with any level of critical detachment.
In particular, the magazine cited The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and
Sánchez, 1999) as an example of buzz [that] was engendered by another
set of movie clichés the tendency to mythologize plucky, independent
filmmakers and their ability to make a movie in eight days with almost
no money .41 Cynical about the notion of the struggling independent
director with a commitment to filmmaking, the magazine stated that
most American independent films are conceived by their directors
as stepping stones to an industry career, as audition pieces for the next
available studio job for hire .42 Another article argued that Sundance-
independent-Filmmaker films have a certain look, story, and budget, critic
claims, and the magazine is just one more cog in an inbred marketing
machine that ends up at your local multiplex .43 Such criticisms, which
traced the problematic concept of independence back to Soderbergh s
success with sex, lies, and videotape at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival,
argued that this was the moment when independent film lost its radical
political position as an oppositional force to dominant media practices
and became a marketing tool.44
What debates around film marketing highlighted, critically or oth-
erwise, was that the independent apparatus was increasingly reliant on
various forms of interdependence. Moreover, the relations between
independent and mainstream were not only part of the marketing of
commercial indie films, but also of importance to the various discourses
that negotiated difference and legitimised the range of meanings about
Searching for a Slam Dunk 37
independent film in circulation. As such, the reterritorialisation of inde-
pendence took place within the discursive practices of differentiation
where independence and indie were deployed to serve various and
competing interests. Indie product differentiation did not, however,
operate within an independent/mainstream oppositional binary, and
whilst the negotiation of such difference played a role, the practices
that targeted niche markets attested to a more nuanced appreciation of
product differentiation. Within the differentiated independent product
were many more layers of difference that recognised an array of group
identities targeted through such niche marketing practices. Thus, whilst
the older, upscale educated consumer had resonance for the marketing of
certain independent products, the strategies employed for Menace II Society,
Like Water for Chocolate and Memento recognised other social identities.
Marketing Memento
In 1999, film marketing focused on the possibilities offered by the Internet
following the phenomenal success of The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and
Sánchez, 1999), which had used a website as a key element of the film s
campaign. The marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project, distrib-
uted by Artisan, was designed by John Hegeman with an initial cost of
$1.5 million.45 The campaign used what were widely referred to in the
trade press as guerrilla marketing tactics . These included setting up the
website www.blairwitch.com and regularly posting footage on it that had
been shot for, but not used in, the film. Aimed at a young target audience,
promotional teams went to clubs and coffee-houses to raise awareness
and build word of mouth by asking people what they knew about Blair
Witch . Authentic missing posters were created using photographs of
the film s three main characters and the promotion teams also worked on
creating awareness of the stick-figure , which became a key visual motif.
Three thirty-second teaser trailers were revealed over an eighteen-week
period, with the third trailer timed to coincide with the release of Star
Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (Lucas, 1999) to reach a maximum
audience. Other elements included a documentary-style special on the
Sci-Fi Channel Curse of the Blair Witch (Myrick and Sánchez, 1999) and
the release of a soundtrack CD, despite there being no music in the film.
The website was a particularly innovative aspect of the film s market-
ing and all other promotional materials pointed towards the site, which
received three million visitors per day.46 What was novel about the Blair
38 Memento
Witch site was that it continued the film s central premise, blurring the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
If Robert Rodriguez didn t exist, independent filmmakers would have to
invent him an unknown 23-year-old makes a terrific first feature for $7,000,
is snapped up by ICM, signed to a two-picture deal by Columbia, and then
applauded at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals.34
Picked up by Time Magazine the against-all-odds story of Rodriguez and
El Mariachi continued to circulate:
Now all Hollywood is calling Rodriguez because Columbia Pictures is distribut-
ing his movie. Not bad for a 24-year-old who raised nearly half the film s budget
(okay, $3,000) by serving as a lab rat in a medical-research project in his home-
town of Austin, Texas.35
And MovieMaker recounted a similar success story about Scott Mosier and
Kevin Smith in a 1993 article, stating in the opening paragraph:
Now signed to feature deals with Universal and Miramax, Smith and Mosier s
début offers the hope that even in the studio-controlled multiplex jungle,
any nobody who makes a good movie even without money, experience or
connections can have their big time moviemaking dreams fall right into their
lap.36
Such narratives translated well into mass-media forms and, in addition
to Rodriguez and Mosier and Smith, the breakthrough successes of
others such as Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee and Daniel Myrick, and
Eduardo Sánchez, and particularly Quentin Tarantino, offered similar
opportunities for rags-to-riches stories of filmmakers working outside the
Hollywood system and remaining true to their personal vision. In this
sense, the indie filmmaker success story reduced a diverse range of prac-
tices, activities, aesthetics and ideologies into a narrative of independence
that had resonance in the popular media, thereby offering the potential to
affiliate the mainstream media to the independent marketing apparatus.
Whilst such stories offered coherence to a varied set of independent
practices, disapproval of the continual reworking of the struggling inde-
pendent filmmaker narrative highlighted tensions between the various
institutional definitions of independence.37 Criticisms were levelled at
institutions such as the Independent Feature Project (IFP), founded in
1979 as a non-profit organisation for independent filmmakers, for pro-
moting the myth of the rags-to-riches tale of the first-time filmmaker
and ignoring political distinctions between filmmakers and filmmak-
ing practices in their quarterly publication Filmmaker.38 The magazine,
36 Memento
established in 1992, claimed to be by filmmakers, on filmmakers, for
filmmakers .39 However, critics of Filmmaker argued that independent
filmmaking should remain true to an ideal of active and self-conscious
opposition to dominant media practices at every level technologically,
institutionally, aesthetically, economically and politically a position
that drew heavily on a discourse of independence associated with the
New American Cinema.40 Whilst Filmmaker avoided politics in favour of
what it referred to as a postmodern view of independent film that can
herald filmmakers as diverse as Quentin Tarantino to Nina Menkes ,
a publication such as Cineaste, which claimed its position as America s
leading magazine on the art and politics of the cinema , represented the
opposite discourse.
In a 1999 editorial Cineaste attacked the marketing practices of
Miramax, October Films and Artisan, arguing that film hype had
reached such levels that its rhetorical power severely delimited an audi-
ence s opportunity to judge a film with any level of critical detachment.
In particular, the magazine cited The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and
Sánchez, 1999) as an example of buzz [that] was engendered by another
set of movie clichés the tendency to mythologize plucky, independent
filmmakers and their ability to make a movie in eight days with almost
no money .41 Cynical about the notion of the struggling independent
director with a commitment to filmmaking, the magazine stated that
most American independent films are conceived by their directors
as stepping stones to an industry career, as audition pieces for the next
available studio job for hire .42 Another article argued that Sundance-
independent-Filmmaker films have a certain look, story, and budget, critic
claims, and the magazine is just one more cog in an inbred marketing
machine that ends up at your local multiplex .43 Such criticisms, which
traced the problematic concept of independence back to Soderbergh s
success with sex, lies, and videotape at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival,
argued that this was the moment when independent film lost its radical
political position as an oppositional force to dominant media practices
and became a marketing tool.44
What debates around film marketing highlighted, critically or oth-
erwise, was that the independent apparatus was increasingly reliant on
various forms of interdependence. Moreover, the relations between
independent and mainstream were not only part of the marketing of
commercial indie films, but also of importance to the various discourses
that negotiated difference and legitimised the range of meanings about
Searching for a Slam Dunk 37
independent film in circulation. As such, the reterritorialisation of inde-
pendence took place within the discursive practices of differentiation
where independence and indie were deployed to serve various and
competing interests. Indie product differentiation did not, however,
operate within an independent/mainstream oppositional binary, and
whilst the negotiation of such difference played a role, the practices
that targeted niche markets attested to a more nuanced appreciation of
product differentiation. Within the differentiated independent product
were many more layers of difference that recognised an array of group
identities targeted through such niche marketing practices. Thus, whilst
the older, upscale educated consumer had resonance for the marketing of
certain independent products, the strategies employed for Menace II Society,
Like Water for Chocolate and Memento recognised other social identities.
Marketing Memento
In 1999, film marketing focused on the possibilities offered by the Internet
following the phenomenal success of The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and
Sánchez, 1999), which had used a website as a key element of the film s
campaign. The marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project, distrib-
uted by Artisan, was designed by John Hegeman with an initial cost of
$1.5 million.45 The campaign used what were widely referred to in the
trade press as guerrilla marketing tactics . These included setting up the
website www.blairwitch.com and regularly posting footage on it that had
been shot for, but not used in, the film. Aimed at a young target audience,
promotional teams went to clubs and coffee-houses to raise awareness
and build word of mouth by asking people what they knew about Blair
Witch . Authentic missing posters were created using photographs of
the film s three main characters and the promotion teams also worked on
creating awareness of the stick-figure , which became a key visual motif.
Three thirty-second teaser trailers were revealed over an eighteen-week
period, with the third trailer timed to coincide with the release of Star
Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (Lucas, 1999) to reach a maximum
audience. Other elements included a documentary-style special on the
Sci-Fi Channel Curse of the Blair Witch (Myrick and Sánchez, 1999) and
the release of a soundtrack CD, despite there being no music in the film.
The website was a particularly innovative aspect of the film s market-
ing and all other promotional materials pointed towards the site, which
received three million visitors per day.46 What was novel about the Blair
38 Memento
Witch site was that it continued the film s central premise, blurring the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]