why children of men should be

As Children of Men was, in my opinion, one of the best films of 2006,

I was pleased to see it rising to #3 on the US box office charts this

week, despite apathetic distribution and advertising. Over at

Something Awful, user blairerickson was so impressed by the film and

so disappointed that the studio wasn't pitching Children of Men at

Oscar nominators that they started their own Why Children of Men

Should Be Nominated For Best Picture campaign which centres around a

neatly cut (if rather spoilerish) trailer featured above and on

YouTube. As the SA forum notes:

Well with at least another week to go before Oscar nomination

ballots are mailed in, I think it would be helpful to do as much as

possible to at spread the Best Picture buzz for "Children of Men"

across the internet. Though the film is being snubbed by its

studio, perhaps a last minute grassroots hype campaign could change

the tide. That's exactly how Crash won last year. And believe it or

not, big industry players in Hollywood do read internet websites,

even this one. After I wrote the Uwe Boll article I got fun email

from some pretty big name producers and screenwriters within the

first few hours of it going online.

So what can you do? For starters users can all DIGG "Children of

Men" related stories and threads. If you're posting on other

message boards, make a thread telling people to go see the movie.

Oh and feel free to spread the YouTube video around, and perhaps

that will remind a few academy voters somewhere about the movie or

encourage more of them to check it out to see what the buzz is

about.

I think this is an excellent grassroots campaign, using the power of

participatory culture to push for a film nomitated by the fans if not

pushed by the studios! The campaign is already picking up some

respectable buzz which is great to see. If you've not seen Children of

Men, I recommend you do ... and spread the word by sharing the YouTube

video and blogging your thoughts far and wide!

(Incidentally, since I never posted an end-of-year wrap-up, my three

favourite films for 2006 were The Prestige, Chidlren of Men and Casino

Royale.)

[Tags: childrenofmen | bestpicture | academyawards | oscars | youtube

| participatoryculture | grassroots]

Labels: children of men, mashup

1 Comments:

At 5/30/2007 04:27:00 PM, Blogger BJ said...

Hey - since you're a YouTuber, you might want to check this

out... There's a video company that's recruiting

YouTubers and if they like your stuff, (and they should) they

will actually pay you when your video gets a hit.

Here's their link...

www.flownetworkproductions.com/videorevenue.htm. It's about

time the people who make

the videos get some of the money instead of it all going to

YouTube!

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