Think About It: Clerks Versus the Critics
Last weekend -- and do try to contain your surprise at this announcement -- I went to the movies. I caught Clerks II with my buddy Jason, and as a longtime fan of the original Clerks, I thought this was one of those rare sequels that lives up to the original, as measured by the number of curse words. I loved it.
But I'm not here to talk about the movie, I'm here to talk about what happened after the movie. As the credits began to roll past, most of the people began to filter out of the theater. My friends and I stuck around. We usually stay through the credits if we liked the movie, wondering if there's any little Easter Egg for the fans at the end of the film. Moviemakers are getting more and more sneaky about putting such things in. I remember seeing the movie Wild Things and laughing at the large percentage of audience members that vanished before the three extra scenes that twisted the identity of the mastermind around over and over again. Of course, most of them just came to see Neve Campbell make out with Denise Richards, and by the credits that much was over.
With Clerks II, though, Jason knew exactly what he was waiting for. As the credits ended, as we reached the point where we ordinarily would finally dust off the popcorn crumbs and filter out, a giant mass of names -- alphabetized -- started scrolling across the screen at lightspeed. Then, as we reached the C's, Jason Champagne leapt up and squealed with glee like a little girl. Now he also did the same thing when Neve Campbell made out with Denise Richards, but this was different. This was because he saw his name on the screen. Apparently the film's director, Kevin Smith, had decided to add the names of the first 10,000 people to add the Clerks II Myspace page to their Friend List into the credits as a marketing gimmick. After Jason leapt with glee I chuckled and started down the aisle.
"I guess you didn't get on the list," he said.
"Even if I had, I wouldn't strain my eyes trying to read all the way through to the 'P's," I replied. "That's what DVD freeze-frame is for."
Later that week, reading up on how the movie performed, I saw that a new controversy had erupted around it. (I say "new," of course, because between Joel Siegel's hissy fit at the critics' screening and the scene with the donkey, the movie already had its share of controversy), as critic Nikki Finke wrote a column condemning Smith for including the Myspace names. The sheer ridiculousness of the column amused the heck out of me. Out of all the things there were in that movie to find offensive, the Myspace names were the least irksome.
Finke's argument, apparently, was that by including the names, Smith was somehow cheating the cast and crew who'd worked on the film, diminishing their credits. I don't get this at all. First of all, the names were scrolling so fast that the white letters on the black background almost looked like television static. Second, it isn't as if Smith claimed they did do anything to help produce the film. All they did, and all he claimed they did, was contribute one of the first 10,000 clicks to a website.
It was a marketing ploy, pure and simple, but not in the way that you're thinking. The cynics will claim that adding the names is just a tactic to get those 10,000 people too come to the movie. Well, I've got news for you John and Jane Q. Cynic: the vast majority of the people who would add Clerks II to their Myspace page would have seen the movie anyway. The marketing came in when, by adding Clerks to their Friends List, they simultaneously created a link to the film on their own Myspace page. There's the clever bit, guys. Imagine that each of the people has 100 friends. (Based on the average MySpace user, this is a particularly low estimate.) That's 1,000,000 potential people who will see the link and find out more about the movie. And there's more when you consider everyone who added the movie's page after the 10,000 mark was reached. Even when you consider how much overlap there probably is between those people's Friends Lists, that's still quite a chunk of viewers.
Here's what Finke -- and for that matter, most of Hollywood --- doesn't understand: the traditional ways of marketing movies don't work anymore. Trailers only go so far. Blurbs from film critics matter less than they ever have before. People are fed up with ticket prices, ringing cell phones and sticky floors, and are more willing than ever to just wait a few months and watch the movie in their own homes, and the gap between theatrical release and DVD release keeps getting shorter to shorter. Movie ticket sales are plummetting. For every Pirates of the Caribbean, there are twenty Doogals. And several Basic Instinct 2s. And a couple of Bloodraynes.
Kevin Smith admittedly makes his movies for a niche audience, but it's a loyal one, and it's one that uses that word of mouth that has consistently proven to be an effective marketing tool, even when the studios didn't have the slightest clue how to help get a movie noticed. What's more, the Myspace technique combines word-of-mouth with the power of the internet, which is proving to have a much greater effect on people than traditional media these days (and if you don't believe me, ask Dan Rather).
The simple point is, Smith made a fun movie and found a fun way to get the word out, and for some reason, this puts a lot of people in the traditional market into a snit. But can you blame them? It's traditional that people get snippy when they find themselves being phased into irrelevance. I'm not saying that Smith's way is necessarily the way of the future, but as the ways of the past go bye-bye, at least he's trying something new.
Of course that's gonna tick some people off. It always does.
When Blake M. Petit makes his major motion picture, he will offer a name in the credits to everyone who gets the movie logo and his name tattooed on their body. Because he's too scared of needles to do it himself. Contact him with comments, suggestions or new marketing techniques at BlakePT@cox.net or visit the Evertime Realms LiveJournal,
blakemp.