Cinema Advanced | Filmmaking Tips

The movie Cloverfield did astoundingly well this weekend. On my other site, ourCloverfield Review has been receiving tons of hits over the past few weeks, so it wasn’t a bit surprise for me to see it at Number 1 this weekend. But what can we, as filmmakers learn from the way Cloverfield built its marketing campaign, in order to better market our own movies?

Cloverfield was by no means a low budget movie. However, it contained most of the negative traits that distributors tend to say hurts the sales of low budget movies. It had no major stars, shaky poor camera work (intentional of course), a TV director making his feature film debut, and all of it shot on HD video. In terms of the way ‘the industry’ values things, the only thing it had going for it was the backing of J.J. Abrams.

But at the end of the day the industry experts opinions don’t mean a thing when the box office numbers come rolling in. In that regards, Cloverfield, delivered big time with over 41 million. Considering January is typically a slow time at the box office, that figure is pretty impressive for an opening weekend.

So what made it so popular? Clearly, it’s intricate viral marketing campaign is what built the buzz to get people to the theaters. I think that most filmmakers have already got that one figured out. But what I want to discuss here is not so much how Cloverfield’s viral marketing campaign works, but rather why it works.

The answer to that question is simple: Curiosity. Human curiosity is one of the largest motivating factors that cause people to act. In fact, some researchers put curiosity on par with hunger or thirst, as a driving factor. You could say that curiosity is quite literally the hunger or thirst for knowledge.

Those of you who were very interested in Cloverfield can probably attest to the fact that you quiet literally feel the need to know. What does the monster look like? Where did it come from? You feel an overwhelming need to have these issues settled, and sometimes even translates into a physical sensation of emptiness in the pit of your stomach. Curiosity is that powerful.

Upon seeing the success of Cloverfield, it reminded me of another movie: The Matrix. I know for most of you film geeks (like me) the subsequent sequels to The Matrix have left a pretty bad taste in your mouth. Ignore that for a second, and try to think back to the very first trailer you saw for The Matrix. Keanu Reeves leaping high into the air, dodging bullets, a very unusual cybergoth looking atmosphere, and then everything goes black with just a website name: www.whatisthematrix.com and the words “What is the Matrix?”

That one statement piqued enough curiosity to propel the movie to the number one spot on its opening weekend and to this day it has made $171 million dollars, not counting its sequels and merchandising.

Fortunately, for horror and science fiction curiosity are easy to build, because people are naturally curious about these subjects. So how do we generate curiosity for our own movies?

Making people curious

• Show less - In the trailer or on the website, never show the killer, the monster, or whatever we are supposed to fear, hate or fight. Just make sure people know its really scary.
• Less talking in the trailer - Dialog spoken in your trailer should be very esoteric, and give very little of the plot away.
  

  Good: I never imagined something like this could happen.
  Bad:I can’t believe you killed him!

• Create curiosity invoking websites - Rather than build a website that ‘explains’ your movie, build a website in the “universe” of your movie. For example, instead of a website that tells about your zombie movie, write a daily blog from the point of view of a character constantly running away from zombies. Reveal very little about the movie itself, but reveal new aspects of the world in which your movie takes place. This keeps the curiosity alive for the movie, while getting people deeper involved in the mystery of just what is happening.
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