Another Movie Idea
If you’ve ever passed a movie shoot, I’m sure you found it as impossible as I have to find out what movie they were actually filming. What is the reason for this? Why all the self-important secrecy? I think this might be another “but we’ve always done it this way.”
To me, this where you create a meaningful relationship between the product and the consumer: “Oh hey, this is the preview for that movie we watched them shoot down the street.” Capturing people’s attention when they are actually interested is a lot easier than when they are trying to do something else. If I were in charge, every truck, every shirt and every camera would have the movie title plastered all over it. But that of course is how Hollywood works–they’d rather pay a half-million dollars for a radio ad than stencil the transportation outside the shoot.
Marketing is about teasing and then reaffirming–hearing people talk and then seeing a lengthy article about it a few months later or seeing a celebrity wearing a logo and then finally identifying it with a brand when you see it in a store. And it is the inability to see things long term–“we need privacy, we can’t have fans bothering us“–that holds people back from doing the little things that add up to a bankable connection.
The flipside to this –
Sometimes I’m walking down the street and run into a movie shoot (that’s already impairing traffic/causing hassles, but we understand it helps rebuild the economy, so that’s okay) and I casually ask one of the bored looking workers standing around.
Quick quiz for the Hollywood types: If I get attitude from the crew, and later find out independently what movie was being shot there was, am I (and other locals who got attitude) going to be
A) More likely to watch the film.
B) Less likely to watch the film.
HOW DARE YOU DISTURB THE TEAMSTERS AT WORK
Ryan, the idea for this is awesome. I think these studio types are all worried that someone will leak the details of the film or something. Or, they’re just stuck in the “well that’s the way we’ve ALWAYS done it” mindset. The latter is probably correct.
I see your side of the argument. But in keeping the movie title secret they do avoid certain things. Lets say that the movie being shot was controversial in some way to an activist group. they do not want the shooting to be slowed down or stopped because of a mob scene of protesters.
In Vancouver, like LA, film crews are everywhere. If you’d rather not “disturb the teamsters” most local businesses will know about the shoot (they may not care much). Also they may have little A-frame signs around.
Sometimes the marketing isn’t ready to plaster on trucks, plus some of the trucks are already plastered with the rental company logos.
Why am I defending this? I’m not. Just talking out of my hat about what I’ve seen. It would be way cool to see huge banners along the side of the trailers…