Independent filmmaker Ford Austin compares marketing his movies to how a Native American once utilized a buffalo.
“They use the skins to keep themselves warm. They use the teeth as tools. They use the horns as musical instruments,“ Austin says. “They use every piece of the animal from top to bottom to live. That’s what a person needs to do with their movie.”
Austin is doing just that to promote “Dahmer vs. Gacy,” his new horror comedy which recently screened at Starfest ‘10 in Denver.
“You have to look at everything you do with your movie as one more person is gonna go, oh, [expletive] I need to see that, but before I do I need to tell all my friends about this weird thing I saw or need to see,” Austin tells WWTW during his visit to the Mile High City.
His new film casts two notorious serial killers against each other in a fight to see who can ratchet up the biggest body count – Austin plays the sandy-haired Jeffrey Dahmer.
It’s more spoof than shocker, and it’s clearly made with a fraction of the money fueling mainstream films – and even many indie shockers.
So Austin goes guerilla marketing to break through the media clutter.
He chats up horror bloggers, appears at horror film festivals and events like Starfest and submits his screenplays to any outlet available.
You likely won’t catch him ponying up for a newspaper ad, though.
“If you can tell me there’s a newspaper that goes to your doorstep that’s building its subscription base I’ll buy ads there,” he says, saying Web is “the only media outlet anybody even pays attention to.”
So how should a wannabe auteur spread the word about his or her project?
Whip up an original soundtrack for your film and consider giving the gig to a local band, Austin suggests.
“When I put together the original soundtrack [for ‘Dahmer vs. Gacy’], now the film’s title goes to music lists, it goes into the iTunes music list. You double your exposure,” he says.
“Every format of your movie should be completely distributable,” he adds.
Tomorrow: Austin describes his roots in absurdist comedy and why fans of the horror/science fiction genres remain a filmmaker’s best friend.
(Photo: Director Ford Austin brings his barbed wit – and gritty marketing chops – to films like ‘Dahmer vs. Gacy.’)
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