If short films should be replaced by web series as the indie filmmaker's go-to calling card, what replaces a film festival's aggregated audience for promoting said calling card? Tubefilter, one of the top web sites focused entirely on web series, recently posted an articled titled How to Build Buzz For a Web Series. I could probably write a much longer post on the same topic, simply by pointing out all of the things we didn't do on The West Side (such as making videos embeddable and posting them to sites like Vimeo, YouTube, and blip.tv). But for now, here are some tips from Tubefilter for building an online audience, including this passage on hitting the message boards:
Series creators need to be proactive when it comes to generating buzz and building an audience. OzGirl creator Nick Carlton targeted the lonelygirl15 fanbase months before his series’ release. He went to sites like MySpace and Bebo, found out who the fans of the show were, and appealed directly to them to try his new show. Social networking sites and message boards are a great way to not only find a potential audience but also a great way to interact directly with them. In fact, targeting message boards has become a standard practice. At the recent Digital Hollywood conference, during one panel, various creators were asked how they got the word out about their show. They each mentioned that one of the things they did was target message boards centered on themes compatible with their respective series. If one is making a niche show, find out where the niche lives and go to them; sitting back and waiting for them to come is not an option.
Of course, the idea of promoting your content on message boards isn't limited to web series; no matter what your project is -- even if it's a short film! -- there are probably message boards or web sites that are a good fit. I recently bookmarked this Google Directory page which lists hundreds of movie web sites by genre. Or course, "independent" is missing from the genre list, but with The West Side we certainly could have dropped a note to all of the sites listed on the Western genre page. For example, if your film is a thriller, check out the Horror list. If it's science fiction, there's a nice Sci-Fi list too. And so on and so forth...
Some of the best horror movies ever made take something innocent and unassuming and make it scary as all heck. Toys? Chairs? Cars? Or, perhaps the scariest, regular human people? You name it; there's likely a spooky movie out there that's gonna make you afraid of something you never saw coming. The latest on this list of scaries? Why, the act of smiling, of course.
Paramount'sSmile franchise has taken the world by storm, turning one of the purest expressions of human joy into a nefarious act of fear. Where Parker Finn's first Smile followed the laid-back, traumatized therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), Smile 2 stepped it up a notch on every level with the tortured pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott). Fans of the first Smile were treated to escalation of scale in every way and delivered one heck of an ending to show for it.
The ending isn't particularly vague, but the Smile monster (or "The Entity" as we know them as) works in mysterious ways, potentially leaving the casual viewer with a question or two once the last terrifying frame cuts to the credits. If you were left frowning with questions, we're here for you to break down what exactly happened at the end of Smile 2.
The Rules of the Smile Monster, The Entity
Smile
Paramount
If there's any human notion the mysterious Entity haunting the psyche of our heroes in the Smile-verse knows, it's that trauma begets.
The basic rule of The Entity is that it lingers in its victim's brain, essentially gaslighting them with a false reality that drives them mad. Once you're infected—or, perhaps, possessed—by the entity, the world around you starts to crumble, and you start to more-or-less hallucinate terrible things at every turn. Only The Entity's victim is able to see these haunted images (often times stranges creepily smiling at them), making it super weird and uncomfortable for anyone that might be in their presence freaking out.
In a sense, The Entity is ruining your life up until your final moments.
The "final moments" of it all is a key factor to The Entity's terror. See, the way the entity possesses new hosts is once it's current host is driven completely mad, they take on the "Creepy Smile" (coined by No Film School, LLC) they become suicidal, and anyone that sees their totally F'd up suicide is now The Entity's host.
Scary stuff!
'Smile 2' Premise
Smile 2
Paramount
So, a banger pop star named Skye Riley is possessed by The Smile Entity. How did we get here? Why is our pop diva icon tortured so?
Jumping off from the events of Smile, Smile 2 opens in an expertly crafted one-shot cold open that could work as a standalone short film. At the end of Smile, Kyle Gallner's nice guy cop Joel is possessed by The Entity when he bears witness to his ex-lover Rose committing Creepy Smile hari-kari after her feature-length mental anguish. Poor Joel.
In the opening scene of Smile 2, we check back in with Joel, who is strategically attempting to pass off and ultimately kill The Smile Entity for good in a ring of shady, bad-guy drug lords. His plan almost goes as planned, until Lewis (Lukas Gage) stumbles in and The Smile entity is passed to him.
Cut to our heroine Skye Riley, recovering from a tough time after a tragic accident killing her partner and leaving her to survive and bear the guilt. She is (mostly) sober, chugging bottles of water in one long gulp to curb drinking, but still uses a bit of Vicodin to deal with her trauma and anxiety from both her tragedy as well as the unbearable weight of being a very famous popstar. And guess who she gets her Vicodin from? You'll never guess, unless you guessed Lewis. It's Lewis she buys her Vicodin from.
And while we're guessing, yes. You're right. Lewis Creepy Smile kills himself, passing The Entity to Skye. This induces a terrible time for Skye, seeing visions of her ex-boyfriend who perished in the car accident, as well as seeing fans at shows and her backup dancing ensemble Creepy Smiling and acting super weird at her.
How does it end? What does it mean? Let's talk.
'Smile 2' Ending Breakdown
Now that our inciting Smile incident has occurred, we're in it for the ringer now.
As Skye is processing her previous with the additional baggage of The Entity's gaslighting ways, she finds solace in reconnecting a fractured friendship with her former BFF, the ever-charming and down-to-Earth Gemma (Dylan Gelula). She comes over for a sleepover, they hang out, etcetera, and Gemma pulls through for her bud full-stop.
At least, so we think—it wouldn't be a Smile without some proper gaslighting from the monster behind the smiles.
It's revealed near the end, close to Skye's big concert, that Gemma hasn't spoken to her since their friend breakup. Gemma was in Skye's head the whole time. Dang. This also comes with the reveal that the time passed in Smile 2—which, in Skye's head, was weeks—wasn't so many weeks after all. This takes us to the big concert, where, well...
Yes, you're right. The Smile Entity does not only Skye, but the entire audience dirty, as hundreds to thousands of people watch Skye Creepy Smile kill herself in front of them. And what does that mean? It means that now The Smile Entity has possessed everyone at the show. And that is not good!
With the recently announced Smile 3, we'll inevitably learn more about The Smile Entity's master plan and how the effects of possessing a mass group of victims plays out. Until then, just be safe out there. The Smile Entity is a bad... um... thing, and you never know when it could get you.
If short films should be replaced by web series as the indie filmmaker's go-to calling card, what replaces a film festival's aggregated audience for promoting said calling card? Tubefilter, one of the top web sites focused entirely on web series, recently posted an articled titled How to Build Buzz For a Web Series. I could probably write a much longer post on the same topic, simply by pointing out all of the things we didn't do on The West Side (such as making videos embeddable and posting them to sites like Vimeo, YouTube, and blip.tv). But for now, here are some tips from Tubefilter for building an online audience, including this passage on hitting the message boards:
