Most of us have experienced it, and at times have been blissfully unaware, but more often than not you're hindered by logos and trademarks in your footage. Whether interviewing someone who is wearing something with a trademark or a beautiful wide shot which is marred by a logo brandishing billboard we have all had to blur a section within a scene to avoid infringement or otherwise.
I myself have experienced this where I filmed a band who had endorsements, but for the project their endorsements could not be shown (see above picture).
This You Tube video (below) on the Film Courage channel, is both insightful and informative it's well worth the 6 minute and 30 second investment of time.
What Filmmakers Should Know About Featuring Logos & Trademarks In An Independent Movie
And so yesterdays Vimeo find of the month (for March) post proves that the online release of independent shorts and proof of concept trailers are garnering more and more studio attention. Where once "musical stars" were discovered through social media and You Tube, now too are directors and original concept films.
SUNDAYS has been greenlit with studio backing and will indeed become a full length feature film, after a studio bidding war which saw Warner Brothers win out.
I can only hope that one day we will finally see a movie length feature film about the exploits of Maru.... We've all been thinking it, and it has more originality than the regular studio remakes, reboots and adaptations.
We all dream of discovery, but it's nice to know it is actually happening for some people and judging by the work on display, rightly so.
In a semi continuation on my January 2nd post, it would seem there are more (less conventional) ways to now advertise upcoming films (or anything in general really).
In Austin, Texas during the SXSW festival Tinder users were, realistically, duped by a woman named Ava. However Ava wasn't what she seemed, and in a marketing ploy to pray on the lonely, they were (eventually) baited into visiting the website for the (then) upcoming film Ex Machina.
Although a great marketing gimmick (See the full article linked below), I find it a little cold hearted and potentially detrimental to say the least. Being baited by a seemingly attractive woman on (what I now know is a) dating app and lead into a Q&A, which does seem a little obvious, is and could be a terrible way to market a film. In a time when studios want to get people in the cinema door many may find this scheme insulting or embarrassing, enough so it makes them anti the film or reluctant to see it at all. Advertising generally doesn't have much bearing on generating viewers/cinema patrons, in fact it's still the humble old trailer most people rely on to hype us into seeing a film; BUT more often than not all the best parts of the film are compiled into a short truncated attention grabber (for those short on attention).
Marketing companies seem to want to find more and more ways to get a film title under our noses to try and generate interest, on this occasion I think it might have been a little too far and in bad taste. I had to research what Tinder was before I wrote this, as I was under the impression it was some sort of sexual encounter app, but seeing it's a dating app makes me think it a little callous as a marketing ploy. What do you think?
