Today's Must Read: Ten Movie Marketing Lessons from the Release of 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
I'm assuming that most of you movie marketers out there already read Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. But in case you missed it somehow, here's a great article discussing the film's marketing strategy. Don't have time to read it? Here's the recipe I found in an old craft services cookbook of mine:
Marketing a la Michael Moore
(Serves half of a polarized electorate)
Preheat oven to 451 degrees.
Ingredients:
1 heaping dose of controversy
1 1/2 villains (colorful preferred)
1/2 cup of audience naivety
2 independent-minded distributors
1 chunk of easily manipulated media
In a separate bowl, mix controversy with a whole villain. Take the chunk of media and break it into smaller pieces (you probably won't be able to separate it into less than six conglomerates) and lay the chunks on a baking sheet. Handily saturate the media with your mixture, manipulating the concoction for at least 2 months. Fold in the 1/2 villain slowly (if you're using the Eisner variety, it could sour the whole batch.) Finally, grease the mixture with the audience naivety and top with the distributors.
Bake for 15 days -- don't let your eye off of the calendar as timing is everything here.
Upon removing from oven, garnish with a healthy dose of GOP anger. For best results, present a thick sample slice to an international film festival, preferably Cannes.
Serving suggestion: Due to the overwhelming response your dish may get from guests, we recommend pairing it with lighter fare (see page 48 for our 'White Chicks' recipe.)
Top 10 things Moore did right with 'Fahrenheit'
Comments
In your vernacular, am I to assume that "naivety" is defined as the state of believing the facts? Because despite the efforts of Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, etc., I already knew about the Bush family's connection to the Saudi oil/money making machine. I realized in March 2003 that Sadaam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, it is naive to believe that he did. Please do not patronize people just because we believe the truth and not what the government has been dishing out via the media for the past three and a half years.
Mr. Moore should win an oscar for his marketing & promotion efforts.
The "facts" are that Mr. Moore plays fast and loose with the truth. With an amazing combination of 'don't question me, I'm an artist' flair and some deft film editing, his 'enter-mentary' almost passes as factual.
I'm not Bush fan.
But I do know hyperbole when I pay $10 to see it.
My support of President Bush being irrelevant to this conversation I must say I agree with treadmill's comments. The genius of Michael Moore (unlike the left I am not going to attempt to discredit him by childishly questioning his intelligence) is that he realizes that he can present whatever tripe he wishes to an audience desperate to believe any bad thing about this country or its leaders. The only seasoning needed to coax the audience into swallwoing said intellectual innards is a stingy seasoning of truth which can of course be manipulated into whatever lie he decides to present.
Christopher Hitchens has an interesting article on "the truth" of Michael Moore:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
Well done Informed! Which aspect of video evidence can one find untrue? Major media conglomerates deem propaganda "news" and their conservative supporters fall in line, while anything disagreeable, however true, is declared propaganda (see also "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media"). That's what known as double-speak, and it is no longer effective on good people.
Actually, if anyone's been paying attention there have been an number of articles all over the web about the great number of inaccuracies and falsehoods in the film. Some even by people close to Moore, who are very sympathetic to his point of view, but say he's grossly inaccurate. In fact, they're afraid that over the long run this will eventually come out, once people are over the over-hyped frenzyy of its release. They seem worried about the backlash effect once this happens, and subsequent fallout to the cause. Hhhmm, so what does that mean then?