I went to see The Shining last night. Not ever interested in horror films, I had never before seen it. It lived up to the hype, but it was also quite funny in places. (C’mon, Shelley Duvall looked hilarious running around waving that knife limply in the air.)
I have a point here and it’s way cool. I didn’t watch The Shining in a movie theater. I watched it outside, on the lawn of the famous Stanley Hotel in Estes Park–the very hotel that inspired Stephen King’s book!
This was the genius of Netflix and Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. Not only were they here in Colorado, they have an entire “Rolling Roadshow.” You could have caught “Jaws” in Martha’s Vineyard and can still see “Raising Arizona” in Apache Junction, AZ, and “Escape from Alcratraz on Alcatraz Island itself (among others).
As I said, genius marketing! Someone took an existing film product and gave it context and made it relevant to today’s audiences. And they also made it fun and FREE. (There was a 10-minute horror-story writing contest prior to the Estes Park movie that got would-be writers involved in the event. Other venues have appropriate before-the-movie happenings as well.)
Hope this makes you think of a bigger context for marketing your art.
