Keeping our message authentic, I felt that it was important to project from the perspective of those entrenched in this neglected community. I wanted to hit the music industry - more specifically, the hip-hop audience. Rappers often paint a glamorous view of drug-dealing and violence our film peels back that facade to reveal the true reality. Our goal was to hit the independent film scene, the people who know and love arthouse pictures. Who is our audience? This is a question that I analyzed carefully, and in doing so, marketed the film accordingly. Our lawyer informed us to never tell anyone “what is real or what is fake.” This incident was crafted into a press-point: “Our film is so real that the Atlanta Police investigated us after watching the footage.” Keeping the viewer guessing is a vital theme that we continued to transmit throughout our campaign.
SNOW ON THE BLUFF INTERVIEW LICENSE
Carefully zooming in on a frame of the movie, they enhanced an image of a license plate which was then traced back to my director. Investigating a string of home invasions, they were attempting to link them to our video footage. Our freely distributed DVD eventually landed into the hands of the Atlanta Police Department. A few distributors took notice and began to initiate conversation. Each write-up, every review, every person made aware of the film was viewed as a mini-success. With each event, we made a concerted effort to promote the film through the local populace by pitching to radio stations, local news and other tastemakers in their respective areas. Slamdance in Park City, Utah was our first exposition, followed by others such as the HBO and the Atlanta Film Festivals. While our name bubbled locally, we began the film festival circuit. Our unconventional style was best described by journalist Warren Berger as “something that lurks all around, hits us where we live, and invariably takes us by surprise.” Spreading our message, it was a war in the form of guerrilla communication as we infiltrated deep within rival hoods. įlyposting images of the film using wheatpaste on buildings, alleyways, overpasses and other high-traffic areas, we saturated Atlanta’s cityscape. This was the start of our guerrilla marketing campaign.
Copies of the DVD were created, multiplied, sold as bootlegs and after a few months, we started hearing urban legends surrounding the footage. After dropping the DVDs off at a flea market in Atlanta, we let it simmer and marinate. They didn’t know that Curtis survived the gunshot and that this shocking video was actually part of a larger film. Most people who watched this sliver of the film thought it was a hood snuff tape. It was raw - a small segment of the film that followed Curtis as he ambushed rivals and, at the end, took a bullet. You must exhibit a strong capacity for creative resourcefulness.Īfter our film was complete, we burned 3,000 copies of the first 30 minutes to blank DVD’s. Finding your niche and projecting your story to its fullest potential requires a fresh approach to guerrilla marketing.
Our eyes are met with a towering cascade of media everyday, and, for any filmmaker, the job of rising above this onslaught requires you to market your project with strategic deployment. The most controversial element of our film is that some of the footage is real while other scenes are staged.Īfter our films are in the can, we as filmmakers are met with the daunting task of marketing our work. The film follows real-life criminal Curtis Snow as he robs drug dealers and attempts to provide for his child. Snow On Tha Bluff is a film that I produced that illuminates Atlanta’s forgotten neighborhood, The Bluff, known for its violent crime, heroin market and extreme poverty.