No studio No distributor No movie stars
Our goal is:
to gross $1m and fund the next movie
It's sounds quite impossible. But we've come up with a strategy:
Everyone who registers to download the movie will get to display a picture, logo or text of their choosing on a billboard in New York's Times Square.
Prices start from only $10 upwards. So for as little as $10 you can get any message / image / logo (as long as it's not obscene and you own the rights) up on a Times Square billboard.
What do folks think about this and could this be used as a cheap form of marketing for startups?
I don't think this is a cheap form of marketing for anyone because the ROI doesn't probably make sense. However, it might make sense as a novelty ad/gift or something to that effect.
Assuming you guys are great with capturing a "scene" in an impressive way, this would make it at least for me much more interesting. You could include there some photomontage of the final result already on the website.
Maybe in the end the most important shoot of the movie is going to be the one of the sponsors displayed at Times Square. A true money sho(o)t ;)
It's probably too late for doing anything with this, but if you do more movies you should consider doing an ARG (like ilovebees, the beast etc.), and I think this would be effective because you are hitting an online audience by releasing a movie that you download. Unless you are pro at creating ARGs, or unless you really put time into it and have a bit of luck it probably won't introduce commercial success, but it would definitely open your film up to a small niche.
Another interesting thing is pricing models, and I think that it won't increase sales, but if some people want to pay more money for extra stuff, they will do so and it will help increase revenue. A good example is at http://joshfreese.com/ (I promise I'm not affiliated, just a favourite musician of mine who had success with this model)
Nonetheless, you do have to convince 100,000 to do it (if they all took the cheapest option). That is quite hefty.
I think you may have to set your sights a bit lower, but it is worth a shot. Try to raise some funds via Kickstarter or IndieGoGo - both have a heavy focus on indie films.
Good luck
How large (as % of the billboard) are the picture, logo, or text?
More information on the movie and the billboard options can be found at http://bit.ly/n4XQG0
sounds unreal
