Obselidia Final Report

PROJECT INTRODUCTION

This report concerns a project undertaken by volunteers working with the Film Festival Marketing Project for the Florida Film Festival.

Each team was assigned a film that would screen at the Florida Film Festival.

Our team included Jeph Alexander, Danielle Francis and Alex Lazin. We were assigned a narrative film entitled Obselidia. The filmmakers were Diane Bell and Chris Byrne and the actors were Michael Piccirilli and Gaynor Howe.

The following is a report on what we attempted, what we accomplished and, most importantly, what we learned.

SYNOPSIS

Obselidia is about George. George believes he is the last door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. He is writing the Obselidia, a compendium of obsolete things. While documenting nearly extinct occupations, he meets Sophie, a beautiful cinema projectionist. Sophie believes nothing is obsolete as long as someone loves it.

THE FILMMAKERS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

DIANE BELL was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. She grew up in many different places around the world before ending up in Los Angeles. Around the year 2000 Chris Byrne was running down the sidewalk as Diane left her yoga class. He stopped and asked her for coffee. They were married not long after that. Diane wrote and co-wrote quite a few scripts before she began experimenting with a character of her own named George. She toyed with the philosophies that are everpresent in Obselidia before Chris urged her to write the script ad make the film. Obselidia is Diane's directorial debut. After it premiered at Sundance in 2010, Diane began writing her next feature film.

MICHAEL PICCIRILLI is from Australia. He also became an Obselidian by chance, meeting Chris on the street years before the script was written. Currently residing in Los Angeles with his wife and two daugters, Michael got his start in front of the camera with an Australian television series called Home and Away as James Fraser. His American television debut was as Antonio Garret on the hit show 90210 in 2008. Obselidia was Michael's second feature film in the USA.

CHRIS BYRNE is an Irish born man who came to America in the 90's to get into the film industry. His first (un-credited) role was in Sleepless In Seattle in 1993. Later, in 1997, Chris appeared in James Cameron's epic film Titanic as the Stairwell Steward who drops the keys, locking Jack and Rose in the flooded lower levels. Obselidia is Chris's debut as a film producer.

GAYNOR HOWE (pronounced Gayner How) is originally from Scotland, but currently works and lives in London with her family. She is another friend-by-chance in the Obselidian crew. Her and Diane met in a pub in Edinburgh in the mid 1990's and have been close friends ever since. Diane said that while she wasn't writing the character Sophie for Gaynor, she knew that only Gaynor could play the part. Gaynor has also acted in a few episodes of the London television show Bad Girls. Obselidia is Gaynor's feature film debut.

Not pictured is MATTHEW MEDLIN, producer of Obselidia. According to all the other Obselidians, Matthew was the go to guy during the production of the film. With his debut as a producer in 2006 (Underdogs) Matthew is still young, however extremely motivated to make great films, and to make them right. Matthew has not been in close touch with Obselidia since it's completion in the Fall of 2009 because he is producing two other feature films, Losing Control and I'm Not Me.

PRODUCTION and FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

The production of Obselidia is an independent filmmaker’s dream. Diane first experimented with the character George, author of the Obselidia, by creating a blog and website. She studied her character from afar for months before beginning the script. She said she didn’t write the character Sophie with Gaynor in mind, but that upon completion of the script, Diane e-mailed it to Gaynor and they decided they were going to work together. Diane’s husband Chris began acting as producer, along with Ken Morris, Matthew Medlin and Diane’s long-time friend David McWhinnie of Scotland.

Obselidia was shot on a Redcam. Cinematographer Zak Mulligan frequently used a red-rock adapter to give the footage a grittier film look and more depth of field. After eighteen days of shooting Diane’s script was shot in full, with the addition of two scenes – the donkeys (which tied in with Sophie’s mention of Au Hasard Balthazar) and the pogo stick (which was found by a crew member in a junk store).

After premiering at Sundance in 2010, where it won Achievement in Cinematography and the Alfred P. Sloan awards, Obselidia was invited to Washington D.C. for a special screening at the Academy of Sciences, then moved on to Ashland Independent Film Festival (where it won Best Narrative Feature), Dallas Film Festival and Florida Film Festival. Obselidia will be screening at Tribeca this week.

MARKETING at FFF

In the weeks prior to the festival, we scheduled radio interviews for Diane and Chris with WUCF’s program called ArtBeat.

Postcards and posters were used to promote the film at locations targeted to our audience. We used the limited number of posters for more favorable locations and then the postcards for either locations that distributed flyers or small bulletin boards and community boards. Most of the higher level targets were either related to environmentalism (i.e. vegan restaurants and organic food markets) and art and culture in Orlando.

We developed relationships with community leaders that could help us reach more of our target audience. Among these people were Robin Wright, president of Women In Film & TV – Florida, and Tina Richards, Coordinating director of the UCF Arboretum.

At the festival, we tagged 8-track tapes (obsolete themselves) with the screening information for Obselidia at the Florida Film Festival and placed around the grounds of the theater for people to find. We also ported the movie trailer onto mobile devices such as a PSP, G-phone, and iTouch, which we then carried around and showed festival goers to give them a taste of the film. Lastly, we created the Obselidia, a mock-up of the book the film is about, and carried it around the festival for anyone to contribute what they thought was obsolete.

We were successful in getting people interested in Obselidia, but had trouble filling seats at either screening because they were not ideal show times. Nevertheless, it was a positive turnout. The audience that did show up to the screenings had a close bond with the film and thus enjoyed it thoroughly. This also made for a great Q&A with the filmmakers after the second screening.

Distant marketing (poster and flyer distribution to key locations) worked in its own way, but it's not what got our audience in the theater. Because of this, we were relieved to have run into PayPal issues that stopped us from spending money on our original postcard design.

We had the most impact on developing a core audience with the face-to-face interaction at the festival. The level of our interaction with people stayed in their minds through the entire festival week.

Social media did not play a very strong part in marketing the film. The Twitter and Blogger accounts we created may have offered valid information to the little bit of traffic that was driven to it, but we did not hear any response at any point about any of them. There were certainly other ways to utilize them better, but it was not a concern of ours since the pre-existing Facebook page for Obselidia was well-maintained. We began to drive traffic to that page over our own.

CALENDAR

Here is the original timeline from our marketing plan:

Week One – March 1-7

• Create Google Docs file for all marketing materials

o Group contact information.

o Film information.

o Specific details for marketing plan.

• Contact Enzian about guerilla marketing goods.

o Flyers, post cards, stickers, etc.

• Contact filmmaker Diane Bell

o Offer a budget?

o Any particular angle she prefers us to approach from?

o Interview, quotes, etc.

o Permissions to create original artwork?

Week Two – March 8-14

• Competition films announced?

o Create press kit - either temporary or with screening dates.

• Contact specific markets:

o Museums*.

o Orange and Seminole County libraries.

o Second hand stores, vintage shops, hobby stores, record stores etc*.

o Retirement homes and assisted living facilities*.

o Ourlando businesses*.

o Florida Free Thinkers*.

o UCF – Cinemateque, Film Club, (Sam Rhodie)

o Full Sail, Valencia C.C., Seminole C.C.

Week three – March 15-21

• Verify that cooperating markets received marketing goods.

• Create original artwork. (pending)

Week four – March 22-28

• Begin guerilla marketing

o UCF, Full Sail, Valencia, Seminole, etc.

o Downtown Orlando, Winter Park, Kissimmee, etc.

o Movie theaters*.

Week five – March 29-April 3

• Maintain contact with cooperating markets.

o Refresh marketing goods. (if possible)

• Continue guerilla marketing.

Week six – April 4-10

• Continue guerilla marketing.

• Maintain contact with cooperating markets.

• Make arrangements to meet Diane Bell. (pending)

• APRIL 9 - Attend Opening Night.

o Develop subtle pitch to bring up in conversation.

Week seven – April 11-17/18

• Continue guerilla marketing with whatever marketing goods are leftover.

• Continue to attend festival with subtle pitch.

• Attend Obselidia screenings.

* SEE GOOGLE DOCS FOR SPECIFICS

In the early stages of marketing the film, this outline acted as a great guideline for keeping on top of the tasks that needed to be done at a certain time. The google docs file that the three of us shared was also an extremely useful tool in communicating what tasks were done or needed to be done.

We utilized Google Docs more than e-mail or any other form of communication. The contents also made our meetings quicker and more productive. We developed numerous spreadsheets with information about target locations for posters, postcards, etc., as well as to-do lists and contact information. An account like this - one that can be accessed remotely by multiple users - is highly recommended for making this project run smoothly.

APPENDIX

The official Facebook page for Obselidia was a big key in getting attention to the film from people local to Central Florida. We were able to use the incredible interconnectivity of Facebook to link the film to the Enzian, the Florida Film Festival, and Orlando's pages, as well as other pages that seemed to be linked to the FFF and had a lot of traffic (Snap!, Downtown Orlando, and Film Orlando.

Our Twitter and Blog accounts did not accompany us much in marketing, but helped us learn a lot about the film in creating them.

Here are some pictures of the on-site, hand-to-hand marketing tactics we used at the Florida Film Festival: