Ben Stiller’s writing partner, Justin Theroux created a brilliant send-up of Hearts of Darkness for the filmTropic Thunder, entitled Rain of Madness. Justin plays a Werner Herzog-esque documentary filmmaker capturing hilarious “verite” moments with cast & crew throughout. This is exactly the type of project we’ve been trying to get the studios to do; see proposals below.

A vast number of real websites based on the film’s stars, championed causes, crew, agency, etc. were also created. Some of these were exclusive content partnerships with sites like Spike and JoBlo. All interesting ways to extend the world of the film, and all born out of Behind-the-Scenes.

The website for Coraline features some interesting featurettes which drill-down into some of the amazing minutiae that goes into making a film like this. 

They used to have a secret site with special keys to unlock this content, but it looks like they’ve finally made it available to the masses HERE.

View PDF

While DVDs typically come packaged with a spate of common extras (commentaries, making-of docs, deleted scenes, outtakes, trailers, etc.), the conceptual side of the form isn’t explored to its full potential.We need to push for skilled experimentation over something traditional and well-executed. 

At Insight, we found Inspiration for a new creative directions in researching the work of Spike Jonze,Charlie Kaufman and Dave Eggers for a Where the Wild Things Are proposal (Dave and Spike co-wrote the screenplay for WTWTA). What Charlie and Spike have been able to do for film in terms of creativity and originality, Dave has done for literature; right down to the publishing info, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is fresh and engaging (included throughout are charts, diagrams, guides to symbols & metaphors, and inventive re-workings of traditional elements such as the preface and table of contents). This trio’s work inspired us to envision what could be done with the added value features on DVDs, including expansion into online and traditional marketing venues. The beginnings of these new creative concepts are outlined and detailed in the proposals section below, submitted to the filmmakers/studios:

View Mr. Woodcock Proposal

View Where the Wild Things Are Proposal

View The Number 23 Proposal

View The Golden Compass Proposal

View LAIKA CoralineProposal

In attending the Industry Insights breakfast on “the internet”, Google’s Vertical Director of Media & Entertainment, Adam Stewart, shared some interesting statistics:

+ The average user spends fourteen hours per week both on the internet and watching television, yet the media spend is only 3% online vs. 36% to television.

+ When searching films online, the official movie sites draw only 10% of users! Even with beautiful interactive sites, wallpapers, screensavers, podcasts, trailers, behind-the-scenes, interactive games, etc., 90% of users are avoiding these – we need to examine why. 

Both of these statistics illustrate the tremendous growth potential for this market. With the rapid surge in broadband penetration, the future is most definitely online.