Supanova

Hi everyone,

As you might know already, I am undertaking my work experience at Dark House Imagery Studios. It is an independent film production company, and we are currently in pre-production for an exciting feature film called Playthings.

We recently attended an event called ‘Supanova’ which is an Australia-wide popular culture exhibition, frequented by hundreds of thousands of pop culture fans each year. As our movie is a horror film, it was suited to the audience of this expo as they love all things slasher, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic! A number of celebrities attend each year and are set up at a panel to sign autographs and take photos with their fans. These included Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse), Daniel Logan (Star Wars), Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) and Chaske Spencer (Twilight) amongst others.

The event was incredibly successful as we drew attention to our film and built up a fan base before it is to be released in 2011. We created an event page on Facebook about a month before the event in order to spread the word about it and invite as many people as possible. At the event, we set up a stall in the exhibitors area with a lot of creative promotional material in order to raise awareness of Playthings.

Firstly, we printed 1000 movie posters featuring a picture that our photographer had taken at an earlier promotional photo shoot with the cast. It is a picture of an eye, however if you look closely at the pupil you will see there is a reflection of the villain! This was really effective on a large A3 poster.

We also had a graphic designer make ‘fake’ money, which featured a picture of the film director’s face as well as our Facebook page and website details. This was a great way of doing something very different and creative, whilst still putting all of the essential information on the promo material. Trust me, a lot of people will come and see your stall if you say you’re giving away ‘free’ money! We gave away 2000 notes of it!

There is a scene in the movie which involves creating origami animals with dollar bills. This is because the horror film is set in a post-apocalyptic society where ‘money has no value’, so people do whatever they want with it. In keeping with this, we gave away 2000 guides of step-by-step ‘how to make origami’. This was a big hit with the younger crowd as we had numerous different animals they could make with the fake money we were giving away.




We also ran a competition for a chance to win a role in the film, giving away 2000 audition scripts for people to take home. They had to record themselves reading the script and upload it onto our Youtube channel. We had a great response and have already chosen the lucky winners!

Overall the event was a fantastic experience and a great success for Playthings. We gave away every piece of promo material we had and we even had to start taking down posters from the walls of our stall and giving them away as we had ran out of our 2000 posters already printed!

I hope everyone is enjoying their placements if they have not finished yet,

Sophie