MySpace is your space is their space

MySpace developed as a social networking community where similar-minded people can create sites based on a particular area of interest, hobby or project. Now MySpace is quickly growing as a quick and easy tool for filmmakers to advertise, market and connect audiences to their features, shorts and docos. And the best thing is, it’s free !

Quite often, the characters of a feature or project will evolve into a life of their own. This presents exciting marketing opportunities for independent filmmakers to further different aspects of the story or drive potential merchandising angles.

Take the example of Making the Empire Cross by Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks.

“Making the Empire Cross is about the role media plays in constructing our world views, what we believe is true, and what ideology should dominate,” Priscilla explains. “My thesis is that this is done most effectively through popular culture (films, music videos, etc) not news and current affairs. Although news does provide the foundation for this, sit-coms, films and the opinions of people who are idolised, often determine whether something is going to stick. That is why I decided to make the toys who ’star’ in Making the Empire Cross, into celebrities in their own right. Or at least pretend that they are.”

The art project consists of a collection of images featuring fascinating characters with their own distinct celebrity personalities.

“The concept that the toys were alive and had other gigs and a real life off set, came from the many hours I spent making costumes for them, dressing them, posing them etc for the Empire project. I made up stories about who they were and where they came from, and decided that they were all glamorous and famous, because they look as if they should be. Then came the gossip, because that is how you become a celebrity these days.”

Priscilla created a gossip column on the Making the Empire Cross website and quickly found that it was a hit with fans.

“I started the gossip column for a laugh but later realised it could be a more effective method of exploring my question (about construction of truth, hegemony, etc via media) than the Empire series itself. And in many ways it has been just as successful if not more so. I’ve now had an exhibition of the gossip, consisting of tear sheets from ‘magazines’ where the toys have featured and pictures taken by paparazzi. It is also the most read page on my website.”

The characters’ move over to MySpace allowed their distinct personalities to evolve and fans to connect with them.

“On MySpace, people go along with the story, treating Cherry and Jack like real people. I understand this with Cherry, because her character is obviously satirical, so a lot of people are into that and want to be her friend. I don’t understand the response to Jack though. What do a bunch of girls looking for ‘modelling’ contracts think a 11 inch plastic doll can offer them? Maybe they have a sense of humor too.”

Check out these other films on MySpace:

Black Gold
Jesus Camp
Jimmy and Judy

Links:

MySpace
Making the Empire Cross

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.