Ant Timpson (organiser of the 48hours film competition among other NZ film events) is an enthusiastic supporter of arthouse/independent. He believes that there are “some cool films (that) deserve to be seen in cinemas with an audience of fans”. His enthusiasm extended to the REC and REC2 films. He knew the distributor – Vendetta Films – had a very limited marketing budget so proposed the REC2 competition.
The idea was to have a $5,000 prize for the individual(s) who promoted the movie REC2 in the boldest and most innovative way.
It was through their participation in the 48hours film competition that VPP Auckland students Martin Webb, Manuel Payan and William Littlejohn found out about the REC2 competition and decided to enter. “Manuel, Will and I were all keen to participate so we decided to start working together brainstorming ideas. After a few bad ideas we all got pretty warm with the Gorilla marketing thing,” Martin said, “Manuel came up with the idea of warning signs about zombies. So after some hours behind a computer screen, he came up with some pretty cool and authentic looking signs. A few adjustments later and we where ready to stir things up.”
As can be seen from their entry they recorded their progress from beginning to end including producing a design, printing off the signs and hitting the streets to plaster the city with zombie warnings. “After a well deserved trip to Wendy’s for a few burgers we spent some time making some motion graphics and editing it all together. Then we waited.” Martin explained.
The team initially had a fantastic response from the judges and they thought they had the winning entry. However, as other entries rolled in (“(some) good entries. Really good entries”!) they new the competition would be tough. The judges commented that due to the high caliber of the entries and the amazing level of “buzz” created their job was virtually impossible. Therefore they split the prize between seven winners. “I think we had all pretty much dismissed it as a fail so when we found out we won a $500 prize we were all pretty stoked. Not the 5k we initially hoped for but still pretty cool!” Martin enthused.
A warning sign
Spreading the fear....
