Tim Burton collaborating with fans on Twitter

According to a recent mashable article, director Tim Burton has opened up his twitter account to interact with fans on a new project that only could exist with social media. Burton started the first sentence in a story about “Stainboy”, and anyone following Burton could continue the story with the hashtag “#BurtonStory”. The best continuations of the day are reposted onto Burton’s twitter. All of this is to advertise a new exhibit of Burton’s artwork that will be displayed in Toronto Canada. This is yet another example of social media bringing celebrities and artists closer to their fans, and could also help to propel regular people into national recognition.

Unique New Marketing Campaign

Inception was a pretty good summer blockbuster with good vague advertising that gave away little of what the movie was about. Because of this, the film felt a little fresher and less predictable than most summer action movies. Now that it’s been a big hit in theaters and now will appear on DVD shortly, the home video advertising campaign is effective in its own right.

In TV spots advertising the Inception DVD and Blu-ray, there will be hidden SnapTags, which are encircled brand logos. Take a picture of a SnapTag in a commercial, send it by e-mail and by phone, and receive free Inception related goodies, like behind-the-scenes footage and other special features. Could this be an example of the kind of interactivity of advertising to come?

Some more movies apps for phones

The always reliable mashable has posted a new article about some sweet new movie apps for iphones. Of the five on the list, only two are really worth mentioning.

First one up is the Clicker app, which allows users to create lists, get recommendations, and see what their friends are watching. The best part of the app is that it tells you what is available to watch online, which from experience is a very helpful tool in getting instant access to movies. Nobody wants to search around, find something great, and then realize they have to go out to see/rent it, or wait for Netflix to ship it. A list of only online movies is a smart element of the app.

But the best app on this list is easily Movie Night Out, which searches theaters showing specific genre films to fit ones mood, and then also recommends restaurants and coffee shops in the area. It’s the perfect first date tool, and a unique and helpful app.

All of this awesome technology makes me wish I owned an iphone. Someday I will reap these benefits in an age where apps are way more advanced and way more awesome.

Spooky Halloween Post!

This doesn’t have anything to do with new technology, social media, and movies, but it’s related enough I thought it’d be fun to post. Here’s this viral video about this filmmaker from Belfast who believes that he found a time-traveling man in drag talking on a cell phone in a 1920’s behind the scenes documentary about Charlie Chaplin. Completely insane, but the video’s fun to watch, if a bit dramatic.

And now that I think about it, viral internet videos and memes are all about this topic and class, so looks like this is more legit than initially thought.

Happy Halloween!

Article: Top Ten Movie Apps for smartphones

This article from mashable lists the top 10 movie apps. While most of them are pretty standard apps that rate movies, recommend movies, and getting show times like Flixster, IMDB, Turner Classic Movies, and LOVEFiLM UK. But other apps offer some unique tools for a small price.

For those with a large DVD/Bluray collection that is hard to keep track of, the Movies/MoviesHD app keeps an inventory and makes searching for DVD’s a breeze.

Anyone who owns a bluray player, Wii, or XBox 360 knows how great it is to watch Netflix instant view movies on their TV’s, but also knows the annoying layout problems of the movie queue. The website itself is perfectly designed, but the instant view feature for bluray players and game systems make searching impossible, and looong scrolling the only way to navigate through one’s queue. The iPhlix app changes this and makes it easier to manage one’s DVD queue.

There are also apps for games like scene it, but the top prize for originality goes to the RunPee application, which offers users the best times in movies to run to the bathroom. As long as movie theaters are around, this will be a useful app to use after a massive soda intake.

These apps continue to makes watching movies just a little more fun and easy.

 

New Tech Update

This recent article at mashable discusses the new engine Inveni.

 

http://tech.mn/files/2010/08/inveni.png

 

Inveni sounds standard enough initially. It is a tool that recommends movies and television shows to members based on what they’ve watched and liked in the past. Netflix and Flixter and IMDb and many other sites do the same thing, but that makes Inveni so valuable is that it creates its recommendations based on all of those websites and more all at once, if one chooses to connect them all together. Inveni is taking an already established idea, and attempting to make it even better and more intensive, with a product that can generate more detailed recommendations. And believe me, there are a lot of movies out there, ones neglected by most people for their age or nation or obscurity. I’m hoping this “discovery engine” will continue the new exposure that many great neglected films are receiving. With Netflix’s instant view (and regular mail services) offering regular people a treasure trove of unknown finds, Inveni will hopefully begin to bridge the gap between the mainstream and the arthouse, the old with the new, and continue to expose people to great films that they should be watching. Any tool exposing people to rich cinema is one that I fully support, and I’m eager to hear of any updates of the Inveni engine. The article even says that Inveni will eventually recommend things other than movies and TV, maybe at some point becoming an all-encompassing website catered to your interests only. Could this be a big deal?

Also, here’s a video from Inveni about Inveni, and it wins me over.

Next post: IMDB Overview

Windows Phone 7 Fandango and IMDB apps

Here’s an interesting video on the new Windows Phone 7 concerning new movie related apps. In the past, phones could access the internet, but the formatting would often be off, resulting in pages that were awkward to navigate through and couldn’t access certain information. But now with the genesis of iphones and other advanced phones with internet capabilities, websites need to offer reformatted versions for easy user interactivity.

Fandango now offers its movie trailer and ticket purchase services on a newly formatted website for cell phones. This new app is especially convenient for movie ticket purchasing, a person now able to purchase from anywhere while out and about to ensure that ticket. Seeing that hit movie opening night has never been easier.

IMDB’s new app is also a convenient one, though not in the same respects as Fandango. IMDB is the website for movie information and for regular users it can be a helpful tool. What was that actors name? Which film was that? What year did that come out? What else did he direct? Now that information can be found anywhere at anytime with the new phone app. The criticism in the video states that the app is a little cluttered and difficult to navigate. That should be expected as the website itself is a bit dense, so hopefully later updates of the app will fix some of the design problems.

Next post: An in-depth look at IMDB

Good Link/Good Start

This article from mashable, though a year old, lists off the 10 best movie-related social networking websites. Interestingly, while new social websites pop up all of the time while others go out of vogue, these websites have remained the best for connecting with fellow movie lovers.

http://cdn2.connectedinternet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Get-Glue1.png

To add some structure to this blog, I am going to study each website and do a separate write-up for each one. I will start with the internet movie database, which really is THE informational and social movie website on the web, and has been for over 10 years.

I also plan to see David Fincher’s “The Social Network”. This wouldn’t be much of a blog if I didn’t post about the film, as it really does have everything to do with my topic.

Next post: IMDB

Mubi.com offers film fanatics place to watch films/discuss

The Criterion Collection, which runs mubi.com (or The Auteurs), is a DVD company that specializes in restoring classic films and distributing them on the nicest DVD’s around, with perfect picture quality and comprehensive special features and notes. While very expensive (one DVD with one movie on it will normally cost about $40), they are a company well worth supporting because they take the time to restore great films that have been forgotten and mishandled for decades and release them with great care on home video. Now The Criterion Collection has opened up its films to the web.

Firstly, they struck a deal with Netflix back in 2009 to feature many of their films on the instant view category. There is a large category of films and TV shows to watch instantly on Netflix now, but back in December 2009 there was a much smaller selection. The 35 must-see classics from filmmakers like  Kurosawa, Antonioni, and Fellini really classed up the list considerably, and introduced these films to a new audience with such easy access. Watching classic films doesn’t have to be a chore anymore, you can just instantly watch one on your computer or TV with Netflix.

Criterion also runs the site www.mubi.com, where users sign up and watch movies sent amongst each other, usually for a small price. Users can comment on films, read articles, make lists of must-see films or films with similar themes, actors, or filmmakers, and friend/find other users to send and discuss various movies. People can also view movies that aren’t even officially available on North American DVD, barely seen since their small release decades ago in another country, offering an invaluable source for film crazy individuals.

Mubi.com is a well-designed social media website with about 30,000 members according to wikipedia. As someone who is obsessed with movies myself, I am considering joining, as it appears to consist of a community of people I would love to become involved in discussion and sharing with.

First post to get the ball rolling

I plan to use this blog to follow how the film industry uses social media to promote and distribute their films to a new generation of tech-savvy movie watchers. This will also include how the film industry is attempting to counteract piracy. I will also be checking out social networking websites where filmmakers and film lovers interact with each other. These include a director showing scenes from a work in progress for feedback or regular users sending each other film files to be viewed and discussed, some films being rare and not widely seen or available.

This article that was published on mashable today about social media and documentary filmmakers is a good first article to get this blog going, as it hits broadly on a lot of topics I’ll be researching later.

How Social Media has Changed the Game for Documentary Filmmaking

It talks of facebook and twitter as websites used for movie promotion. A fanpage to be “liked” on facebook, or a tweet endorsing a new movie go a long way in spreading the word of some of the smallest productions out there. By using the interactive tools of facebook and twitter, social networking systems beloved by millions, any film has the power to attract an audience and popularity with smart marketing.

For instance, “The Human Centipede” was a low budget horror film that never would have been seen by anybody outside of some festival audiences. But it had two things going for it, a really disgusting gimmick and a huge internet outrage. Eventually, so many people talked about it that there was a widely seen advertisement on facebook with a fanpage, and it became completely mainstream.

The Human Centipede Facebook Page

Daniel Tosh, of the new popular Tosh.O series on Comedy Central, posted a video online of him describing the entire movie to one of the audiences at a taping.

Tosh.0	Weds 10:30pm / 9:30c
Spoiler Alert – Human Centipede – Uncut
www.comedycentral.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:343580
Tosh.0 Videos Daniel Tosh Web Redemption

The whole video isn’t necessary to watch, it’s 25 minutes long, but it’s a good example of how what people watch is changing drastically, and that a small vile independent production like this film can become well known in our American popular culture because it became viral on the internet. The rules of the game are changing, and any filmmaker with a computer has the tools to send their film out there and gain a huge following just by playing their social media cards correctly.

I’ll have another update soon, and will hopefully weed out the linking problems currently in the post.