Rubbertopia

Chris Quigley

It was almost ten years ago that The Blair Witch Project first harnessed the power of viral marketing to elevate what was a low-budget indie film into a $248 blockbuster. Earlier this year, ‘Cloverfield’ made the most of the Web 2.0 zeitgeist with its use of fake YouTube clips, Myspace pages and blogging.  Cloverfield highlighted the use of online content to not only market films, but also extend the viewers overall film experience by layering content before and after the films cine release – creating a “multi-layered experience”.

The latest, and perhaps most ambitious, example of  web 2.0-styled multi-layered films is Paramount’s Tropic Thunder – a kind of Apocalypse Now meets Spinal Tap action comedy featuring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as a set of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film.

Multi-layering is at the heart of  Tropic Thunder – affecting its concept, plot, characters and marketing.  Conceptually the film’s a Vietnam “making of” style movie – with a ton of Apocalypse Now references.  Within the plot of the film, there’s also a “making of” (or should that be “making of making of”) documentary.  On top of this, there’s a whole host of back-stories for each of the main characters, including actor’s microsites and fictitious film trailers.

Each of these layers are then given depth online using a mix of video, interactive and microsite content, creating a whole web of cris-crossing layers that the fan can get absorbed in – helping extend the film’s overall experience, and providing powerful viral marketing fuel.

As a quick guide, here’s a few of Tropic Thunder’s layers explained:

Layer tactic 1: Faux trailers of the main characters past films have been created and distributed on their own personal websites.  Paramount spawned an official site for star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller’s character) as well as sites for some of his films like ‘Simple Jack’ (an action star going for an Oscar by playing a handicapped farmhand). Tugg’s favourite charity even has its own site - www.pandarelocationfoundation.org

There’s also a site for the fictional company that turned Downey’s character into a coloured man in Tropic Thunder.

Layer tactic 2: A faux trailer and blog for the mockumentary ‘Rain of Madness’ have been released as a parody of Apocalpyse Now's ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse’ – a layeriffic documentary on the making of a movie within a movie.

Layer tactic 3:  One of the greatest facets of the viral campaign is a star-studded attempt at the creation of a viral, which was originally aired during the MTV Movie Awards but can now be found on YouTube generating millions of views. The video showed the three lead actors on a mission to create a viral video for the Internet that could promote the movie. Cleverly it is also filmed with a mobile phone camera to give it an authentic look.

Layer tactic 4: Paramount has bizarrely reversed the conventional product-placement route by distributing a product that’s featured in the movie called Booty Sweat - an energy drink.  They even went as far as making an ad for the product.

With all this layering and inbuilt “talkable content”, Tropic Thunder’s a really great example of how film-making and marketing can be integrated together to ultimately create a self-marketing “social” film.  Welcome film 2.0.

[N.B. thanks to Rebecca @ Adfreak for Tropic Thunder commentary inspiration]