Do Third Party Reviews Help Your Branding And Sales?
 

One of the things we do a lot here is to send out invitations to film reviewers and journalists to offer a screener for our new film releases, which they then watch and syndicate a review or commentary across their media networks.

The most recent of such was Angie's new movie, "Gone" which is a short dramatic erotic narrative in the "for women and couples" niche that was released a few months ago. The reviews that have been published are generating serious interest in the film, and sssh.com in general.

Here are a few of them that our out on the interwebs now (WALL OF TEXT ALERT):

Theresa "Darklady" Reed Review:
Mainstream film loves to flirt with sex, but it?s never quite ready to make a commitment. Sex, to much of Hollywood, is a mercenary thing; primarily useful as a tool to transition a scene, provide a shock, or look hip. Explicit sex, we have been told, is the purview of pornography; somehow less worthy of art or understanding than explicit violence.

Director Angie Rowntree dares to call that conventional wisdom out with her short film, Gone, a movie with both the balls and the ovaries to not only present its sex frankly, but to literally marry it to kink, love, and devastating loss.

Rowntree tells a tale as old as time when she introduces her audience to Rebecca, an attractive woman who has finally met the love of her life ? and discovered that he?s more than a little into structured relationships and discipline. Because the love-vibe is strong, Rebecca is able to open herself fully to Todd, who becomes both her husband and loving dominant.

In spite of many flashbacks to good times, Rebecca is beyond distraught; forced to adjust abruptly to a world, a house, a dungeon, and a life without her beloved. The why of her apparent abandonment is a timely reveal, but not really the point of the story.What is the point? Other than the fact that love truly is a many-splendored thing and there are as many ways to express, intensify, and commit to it as there are people capable of loving? From a film-makers? position, the point is that a powerful story involving complex emotional states can be successfully told in combination with explicit sex. It just takes some talent and a genuine respect for all of the subject matter, even the wonderfully kinky-weird stuff and the vanilla married sex stuff.

Rowntree, her cast, and her crew clearly have these qualities.


Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals, Sociologist and Author:

Gone does in 30 minutes what most Hollywood films fail to accomplish in a lifetime. The chemistry between ?real life? lovers Madeline Blue and Gee Richards is palpable, and yet you do not feel like you are watching a rending of their private lives in the film. Instead, Gone connects with the viewer?s own romantic and emotional experiences, presenting you with raw emotion and passion that transcends individual experiences and catapults you to a deeper, more primal experience of love. I don?t want to ruin the story for you, but Gone is something everyone must experience for themselves. It is a true testament to director Angie Rowntree?s skill, experience, and vision, while showcasing what film has the capacity to render.

Jen McEwen and Jesse Adams at Mikandi.com Couples Commentary:

"We loved this film. Gone takes the viewer beyond sex scenes and into the world of true erotic cinema. It features a richly layered story that follows a relationship through sexual exploration, love, and loss. We found ourselves engrossed in all aspects of these characters? lives. If the sex scenes were removed from this film, it would still be every bit as enjoyable. Watching the physical expression of their love for each other was the cherry on top. Gone is a must-see for anyone who wants to see more in their porn: more connection, more emotion, more thought, and more care."

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Many more, but those are some examples of ones that are doing well at branding the movie and Angie's "porn for women" site.

The end goal here, which is working on this one, is to attract mainstream media attention. Mainstream LOVES to cover porn, as long as it's a few degrees of separation. Since the above reviews and commentary went up over the past few weeks, Angie has been contacted by Cosmo, HuffPo, HBO, etc for interviews, a slot on "The View", and invited back to do a second presentation at Sundance about being a female adult film maker. Go Angie!

The key we are finding for proper targeting and funneling traffic for sales and paysite joins generated from this sort of coverage is to have a good looking landing page that is specific to the topic/product/release. In this case Movie: Gone - A Story Of Love & Courage (and yes, of course, this page is available to affiliates to promote for revshare and PPS).

Anyone else playing in this end of the swimming pool? Would love to compare notes.

Colin

p.s. if you would like the url to the full screener for review, PM me :-)

Here's the "soft" version trailer on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaTcAdNlbI0

okay, that was a little long, but thanks for the info about the Minnesota Orchestra! lol

Anyone have anything useful to say about this topic, aside from I posted too much information, and $Money$ handed me my ass? lol

I have nothing useful to add but I think you are doing a great job.

Deleted 'cause I like you, Colin, and it occurs to me you might not want to discuss this in public. Going to ask in a more private setting.

PM me on this indeed.....
Colin

Should you send out copies of your movies for review?
Um, yes?

Yes. I have review screeners online. Just need individual requests for such with some sort for press/media/film reviewer creds to get access.
PM me requests? Similar to mainstream festival protocol here.
Colin

Very nice and useful read, thanks.

Always happy to hear that things are useful! You're very welcome, jerkules :thumbsup

I like you too Amelia!
Email or skype is best for me. So many boards, so many PMs I can't keep track of them. lol
Colin
skype rowntree2007
email [email protected]

Speaking as an affiliate and as one of your many reviewers, I really liked the fancy landing page for the movie. It is, for want of a better word, classy -- and having it available makes it easier to write about the movie.

As you know, I'm fascinated by the challenge of how to get mainstream attention and traffic from prudish social media. Your movie landing page officially gave me Ideas.

Is Scorsese's success due to getting good reviews, or producing a product worthy of good reviews?

Content is King, without good content no one will screen a movie, stock a book, watch a TV Chef, read a board, and if people don't like the trailers or samples they won't buy.

Even with reviewers, if they're bad at giving reviews. People won't return.

Do third party revues help branding or sales? Depends on the product.

Some people forgot that. And if they could only get enough traffic with shit, they could sell shit. A lot of people swallowed that shit. LOL

Quality content is necessary but not sufficient. It used to be sufficient, back in the day when Google would honestly surface whatever enough people were searching for and linking to. Nowadays, to say "content is king" just shows that you aren't keeping up on the challenges of adult content marketing in the social media era.

Now we live in the era when Google, FaceBook, Amazon -- anybody big enough to be corporate and have a search engine as part of their product -- refuses to surface porn honestly and fairly. Some ban it outright, some refuse to allow links to it, some just degrade the quality of their search results to hide or bury adult stuff. This is all independent of the quality of that stuff. The "porn" or "sex" or "nudity" or "adult" label -- often applied by stupid machine algos -- is enough to get your stuff blacklisted, brownlisted, or buried. It doesn't matter whether your adult shit is good or popular or amazing. The stacks (Google, Amazon, FaceBook, half a dozen others) don't care, and they have effectively all the traffic.

Colin's not asking "can I sell a shitty movie with reviews". He's asking, as I parse his post "Have y'all had any luck using reviews to entice porn-hostile media into giving attention and traffic to a good porn movie? Because it seems to be working for me, and I'd like to swap tips on making it work even better." Very different focus.

Thanks, Forkbeard!
That was a LONG walk to learn html5 and bootstrap to create that, but it was worth it for the final appearance....

Nailed it, Forkbeard. That indeed was the question for discussion.
(welcome back Paul!)
Colin

Love Paul So Much For Many Years!
Here is the movie version of him that sums it up in a delightful way: Welcome | Wallace and Gromit

Oh, here is me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcEWhbQkEg