Enterprising Times Jan/Feb 2013 Print Version - Staffordshire ...

Enterprising Times
Microsoft to premiere Pulp the Movie on Xbox – Phil Bland
Someone once told me that making a film isn’t easy. And they were right. In fact, it’s ridiculously
difficult. I can say with some certainty that EVERY single movie that is completed is like a beautiful and
rare miracle. On the achievement scale, watching a movie should be placed just above riding a unicorn
to a Grand National win.
Faculty of Business, Education and Law, Staffordshire University
www.staffs.ac.uk
+44 (0)1782 294060
Page 3
Having completed Pulp in September 2011 I thought the hard bit was done. I was wrong. That was the
easy bit. With the DVD market dying a death and independent theatres closing all over the country, there
is no longer a platform for indie films to be released and achieve a significant groundswell. More and
more people watch films online through platforms such as netflicks or lovefilm but unless you have either
a) studio backing or b) millions of pounds of marketing budget your film will disappear into the online
ether with barely a whisper. Thousands of
indie filmmakers worldwide are all trying
to solve the distribution riddle, but in times
of austerity and bleakness, there are
always opportunities.
For Pulp, that opportunity was Microsoft.
Through their Xbox platform they can
reach 4 million people in the UK alone –
most of whom use the console as their
primary source of watching movies. By
featuring on the movies landing page it
is also an efficient marketing campaign.
Switch on your Xbox to watch a film.
How about this one? No TV adverts. No
billboards. No full page ads in the papers.
Pulp will become the first feature film
to exclusively premier on Xbox on
March 4th. As with all new explorations,
it is a journey into the unknown. But
with the announcement making headlines around the world through Deadline Hollywood and Screen
International, there is a sense that this could be the glimmer of hope that indie filmmakers have been
searching for. I hope that proves to be true because making a film can be easy, but getting it to an
audience is certainly not.
For more information visit www.reelsinmotion.co.uk or www.pulpthemovie.com.
Pulp will be released on 4th March 2013 on Xbox UK. It will also open the Stoke Your Fires Film
Festival on 1st March. Pulp is directed by Adam Handy and Shaun Magher, and produced by Dare
Productions and Reels in Motion.
Dr Allan Watson
Dr Allan Watson’s (currently at the Geography Department, Staffordshire University) PhD, ‘Sound
practice: a relational economic geography of music production in and beyond the recording studio’, is
now available under a creative commons licence from Loughborough University (http://bit.ly/Ya5Tbb). It
should be of interest to anyone working in the creative industry in general not just music studios.
You can follow Allan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AllanWatson1.