Sneaky Previews

When it comes to ferreting out sneak previews, premieres and test screenings of highly anticipated motion pictures, Southern California movie buffs are fortunate indeed.

All one need do is survey the newspaper ads on any given Friday, be the second cousin or neighbor of the stunt coordinator or stroll through Old Town Pasadena, where audience wranglers recruit volunteers to sit through rough cuts of upcoming films. Just swear you’re not a member of the press, and you, too, can tell directors how you think their movie should have ended.

Or attend one of the many comic book and sci-fi conventions held seemingly every weekend, and filmmakers will hop in their SUVs to come to you. Such was the case a couple of Sundays ago, when several key members of the creative team behind DreamWorks’ updating of “The Time Machine” participated in a panel discussion and preview screening at the Shrine Auditorium.

If you happen to live in Flyover Country, however, being the first person on your block to see a potential Hollywood blockbuster--”Ice Age,” for example--is a little more complicated, although not impossible.

On Tuesday, Fox is holding what it bills as the world’s first Outdoor Frozen Movie Premiere, to which it has invited a select group of Minneapolis-St. Paul viewers. Because, in all likelihood, most of those attending the nocturnal screening also partake of such seasonal pursuits as ice fishing, snowmobile marathons and dogsled races, sitting outside for 90 minutes to see a movie should be a breeze.

“I think only Minnesotans can appreciate sitting outside, at night, in the winter,” allowed Alan Cohen, president of domestic theatrical marketing for 20th Century Fox. “There even will be a section with seats made of ice, where members of the Polar Bear Club will sit in their bathing suits.”

And you wondered how Jesse “The Body” Ventura came to be governor of the state.

The premiere caps a monthlong campaign at the sprawling Mall of America--which, technically, is in nearby Bloomington, and outside which the preview is scheduled--that included lots of “Ice Age” signage and trailers in the local mega-plex.

Folks in less frigid parts of the country, however, could hardly have missed seeing the digitally enhanced characters that populate the animated feature, considering the barrage of commercials and billboards Fox purchased.

“The buzz started last summer, with trailers and all the other viral platforms,” Cohen added.

Viral marketing? Is there a doctor in the house? Viral marketing involves the placement of a character or aspect from a movie into different TV programs or Web portals.

“We took Scrat, one of the characters that doesn’t talk, and placed him virally into the programming at 12 different cable channels, and on the Olympics medals-count board. You’ll be a watching a program, and, all of a sudden, there will be Scrat running across the bottom of the screen ... or he’ll pop up during the Storm Watch segment on the Weather Channel.”

He added, “Sometimes, we’d take a break, then come back with something bigger. Even when we came back with our full-fledged media campaign, we still were looking for other platforms to extend that buzz.”

The marketing team at DreamWorks began its stealth campaign for “The Time Machine” at last summer’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. The nearly 50,000 fans in attendance were encouraged to poke and prod props from the film, including the time machine itself, and watch some early footage.

Within hours, photos of the time machine and other reports from Comic-Con were posted on Web sites around the world, including Ain’t It Cool News and Dark Horizons, both of which cater to genre-specific audiences.

“There’s a huge fan base for science fiction, and the experience we’ve had--especially at Comic-Con--tells us that everyone’s pulling for us to make a good movie,” said Simon Wells, co-director of the “The Time Machine” and great-grandson of H.G. “These are the people who actually go to the movies, and, for their $8 or $9, want to see something they’ll like.”

Although the Web sites that cater to these fans sometimes take heat for revealing too much of the story line of a film that’s still in production--even to the point of critiquing working scripts--studio marketers have embraced them as valuable tools.

“In the last two years, we’ve gotten quite a lot of support from the studios,” said Garth Franklin, editor of the Sydney-based www .darkhorizons.com, in a trans-Pacific e-mail interview. “I make the call as to what coverage goes up on the site each day, but, every now and then, I get in touch with the studios, in regards to confirming articles or obtaining publicity material. Occasionally, I’ll get notes from them asking if I’d like to help launch things like a poster or trailer.”

Franklin estimates his daily audience at 500,000, and “our tracking software indicates a lot of visitors work at the major studios. Fans from the U.S., U.K., Australia, France and Germany are the ones who most frequently check out the site, but we’ll also get mail from places like Ecuador and Cambodia.”

It’s been widely reported as well that studios and individual filmmakers often will fly Ain’t It Cool News’ Harry Knowles--and his dad--to far-flung locations and Hollywood sets, in order to lay on the hard schmooze and curry favor with visitors to www.aintitcool news.com. Critics of Knowles suspect that appealing to his ego helps gain favorable coverage, although it didn’t sway him from trashing John McTiernan’s updating of “Rollerball” in advance of its release.

In addition to contributions from the makers of “The Time Machine,” other Hollywood goodies offered at Comic-Con included previews of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Planet of the Apes,” “Ghosts of Mars,” “Spider-Man” and “Star Wars: Connections,” the first presentation by LucasFilm detailing the links among all of the “Star Wars” movies. In addition to Wells, directors John Carpenter (“Ghosts of Mars”) and Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”) appeared in person.

“I think it’s fun being challenged by the fans and having to justify how we do certain things ... like design the time machine, for instance,” said the movie’s visual-effects supervisor, Jamie Price. “I got into this business because I was doing illustrations for science-fiction paperbacks in Germany. I’ve been on the other side of the podium many times, as a fan, and met graphic artists I admire.

“I found these panels to be very informative. Now, I’m trying to do the same thing.”

Anyone who worked in this town before the arrival of stadium seating and nacho machines will remember when impresarios, such as the late Allan Carr, would use any tool at their disposal to promote a picture, especially if it didn’t cost much.

In 1976, for example, Carr and Robert Stigwood picked up a low-budget Mexican film, “Survive!,” which documented how a group of athletes survived a plane crash in the Andes. The reality-based movie couldn’t have been any cheesier, but Carr thought he could drum up enough opening-weekend business by instructing local exhibitors to have an ambulance strategically placed outside their theaters, in case anyone fainted at scenes of cannibalism.

Naturally, people keeled over with surprising regularity on opening day. The gag helped build word of mouth, and, before audiences smelled a rat, the picture took in something north of $40 million.

But those were the days when stealth marketing was simply called promotion.

Today, very few movies are put into release unless they’re vetted before test audiences and given an opportunity to generate “buzz” among key interest groups.

“We tested ‘Dragonfly’ before a general audience, just to see how it would play,” said Tom Shadyac, who directed the supernatural thriller, which opened two weeks ago. “However, to create some word of mouth we went to groups of people who believe in certain forms of spirituality. We also went to a gentleman named Richard Bach, who has a newsletter that goes to 3,000 different churches, and we screened it for Betty J. Eadie, who wrote about her own near-death experience in ‘Embraced by the Light.’”

Banner ads for “Dragonfly” appeared on the Web site for USA Studios’ Sci-Fi Channel, and www.scifi.com/johnedward, which promotes “Crossing Over” and its host, psychic medium John Edward.

In fact, there are practically as many Web sites and individualized marketing campaigns as there are movies.

Fox has been successful marketing movies targeted at African American audiences by enlisting the help of the First Friday Group. Preview screenings helped propel “Waiting to Exhale,” “Soul Food” and “Men of Honor.”

“The mission of the First Friday Group is to support African American films,” explained Jeffrey Godsick, executive vice president of publicity and promotion for 20th Century Fox. “They know that if African Americans support these movies, there will be more of them. Members are required to attend recommended movies on opening weekend.” Hence the name First Friday.

“Men of Honor” also benefited from a screening sponsored by the secretary of Defense, and a reception where Carl Brashear, who is portrayed in the film by Cuba Gooding Jr., was honored for his service to the Navy. Fox then held screenings on military bases, for veterans groups and other black organizations.

Like “Pearl Harbor,” Fox’s “Behind Enemy Lines” was screened on an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vincent, which was on active duty in the Persian Gulf.

“‘Moulin Rouge’ had separate campaigns in the fashion, art, music and design communities,” said Godsick. “They were strong stealth-marketing, grass-roots efforts that fed into the general campaign. Stealth marketing is nothing more than penetrating the culture through means other than hard advertising and pure publicity.

“If ‘Ice Age’ is to be successful, it has to reach beyond kids and their parents. If we don’t leave any stones unturned, we can amp up the perception that this is an event.”

This brings up another question, however. If members of the Twin Cities Polar Bear Club have a “frosty” reaction to “Ice Age” next week, will Fox’s marketing team interpret their response as positive or negative?