io9
Shutter, a horror flick opening next week, is a purely supernatural tale about spirit photography (taking pictures of ghosts). But it turns out the Shutter viral marketing crew is trying to suck in the sciencey/gadget geek crowd with a stealth media campaign: Fox reps are urging journalists to write about the "scientific causes" of ghosts, and push expensive spirit-photography cameras on people interested in the movie. An anonymous source passed me a fairly creepy email about this that was sent to a large, glossy magazine's editorial staff.
A promoter named Warren Betts with Fox Pictures writes in his story pitch to Anonymous:
Generally, I cover the world of science and technology and publicize movies with those themes, but this is a very intriguing story and in the film the characters use very sophisticated technology and optics in trying to capture this apparition on film. Next year a Japanese company is introducing the first camera (very expensive) that will allow photographers to shoot in the invisible light spectrum. This might make a very powerful tool for understanding this phenomenon and the possible scientific causes. The public is very interested in this subject and I wanted to check with you and see if you might be interested in hearing more about this? Would this possibly be something you would be interested in covering on your pages?OK, what? There is no "scientific" basis for ghosts, or for ghosts appearing in photographs. Yes, there are scientific reasons why people believe smudges in photographs are ghosts. I believe psychology would call those causes "grief" and "desperation." And these afflicted people are going to be targeted by a "Japanese company" who wants to sell a "very expensive" camera to cash in on their grief. I think I know what the name for this phenomenon is, and it ain't scientific: it's pure, simple avarice.
Look, I have no problem with product tie-ins or goofy expensive shit that people buy when they like a movie. Hell, I have a ton of ridiculously expensive kaiju dolls — some of them are from the 1970s, and who knows what they'd be worth on Ebay. But nobody sold me those dolls pretending that they were somehow a "scientific" method of making Gamera come hang out with me, or helping me reach my dead mother. Pretending that something unscientific from a horror movie IS science in order to sell people movie tickets and expensive cameras is, as Penn and Teller would say, bullshit.
And it's the crappiest kind of viral marketing, too.
Comments
Your camera stole my soul!
Amen, sister.
I'm actually a little more surprised that they aren't pushing the obviously product-placed cameras appearing in the movie harder, rather than this nebulous "soon to be release in Japan" crap.
Though it is a scientific fact that once you get up to 23 megapixels, you can actually photograph God. At 25 megapixels, you can photograph through her shirt.
well said!
In their book Playing in Traffic Penn & Teller included an acetone sheet that let you take polaroid pictures that revealed a person's spirit guardian.
It was either a flying carrot, or Teller dressed as the Virgin Mary.
That's nothing, I've got some ectoplasm IN MY PANTS.
It's like that Michael Keaton movie "White Noise" only much, much worse.
In photography class, I took pictures of the "invisible light spectrum" with a hand-me-down Nikkormat. Dark red filter and infrared film probably set me back, oh, $20.
I love the marketing hack speak.
"The public is very interested in this subject and I wanted to check with you and see if you might be interested in hearing more about this?"
They think they sound utterly sincere, but anyone who's been on Earth for more than a decade can smell that bullshit a mile away.
The movie's leads were at Wondercon and were BSing the crowd about how they were skeptical too and now they're not so sure. Looked like someone had put them up to it too. Put me straight off the movie, which had looked interesting till.
Hmm... so the new Nikon D90 comes with a "INSERT GHOSTLY SPECTRAL VISION" button?
Rus,
35 Megapixel is so passe. Check out the camera that a friend of mine works with at a Hawaiian observatory - 340 megapixel. You can see god's entire evolutionary lineage with it. :-)
[cfht.hawaii.edu]
Time to buy stock in an EMF detector manufacturer!
@Jackson West: I still use my Nikkormat EL... great old thing.
"Invisible" Spectrum of light.... Hey-zooos chrisp that is some crap marketing.
Does this mean I can't use the one ring to rob the bank anymore? ;)
Jesus, people. It's PACEY. PACEY FER CHRISSAKES!
@Kingsley 2.0: Yeah, I saw that too. Why not just market it as straight horror? Why this whole "it's really science" thing?
@Lydia9: Me too! Ectojizz -- very expensive. Want to buy some?
@Annalee Newitz: In my experience, people who are scared by horror movies can be divided into to general categories: People Who Are Scared By Real Things, and People Who Are Scared by Not Real Things. Usually, the former category is larger.
Playing up the "scientific" aspect of the spirit photography is an I think misguided attempt to change "ghosts" from a thing that scares the second category of people to a thing that scares the first category of people.
Horror movie makers often do dumb shit like this. I am compiling a thesis on the nature of horror, prompted entirely by such idiocies.
@Plague: Oh my god it IS Pacey.
"that will allow photographers to shoot in the invisible light spectrum"
WTF? Infrared? Ultraviolet? T-Ray?[www.dailytech.com]
I love Pacey. He's so dreamy.
Can I get an official "White Noise" VCR?
Speak for yourself. I happen to have a photograph that captures ghosts on film. Wait... I mean souls. I have a nice collection of marketing executives. Explains a lot really.
So--they're gonna sell people cameras that do double exposures?
so let me see if I get is right, Pacy leaves Dawson's creek and goes to Japan, where he hooks up with an obsessive kogal and as every reasonable white person he kills her or forces her to kill herself and then she haunts his pictures ..... man I whish my job was to smoke skunk and make up movie scripts :)
I swore this was a frame from American Beauty.
Why did you film the dead bird?
Because it's beautiful.
Fatal Frame the movie?
Ahh, yet another asian horror flick to get the hollywood treatment.
One Missed Call was totally unnecessary (removing the distinctly Miike-ish elements of the original left a shallow shell of the original), and now this is just sad.
@Lydia9: Eew, keep your ectoplasm in your pants, please!
I'm still trying to figure out why they are setting a remake of a Thai movie in Japan.
Because only Japan has scary blackdrippyhairedwomen, who move in stuttering motions and haunt you, yes?
Sure, this is despicable.
On the other hand, so is John Edwards, and his loathesome clones that infest every city. They all seem to do a good business, and people would probably get mad if they were all shut down for fraud.
I expect the 'Mediums' bolk people out of a lot more money that this viral campaign will.
-Kle.
And he's holding a Leica. It's a German brand!
Did they do a quick Google search and call it a day or something? All cameras can see the "invisible light" spectrum, because it can already see lightwaves beyond our capability to.
Personally, I think it would be much more interesting to develop a feature film of the Are you Afraid of the Dark episode of the kid whose evil camera caused disasters.
@Rus McLaughlin: Lovely - the very first picture of god is going to be an upskirt. :D
@braak: I find that the supernatural is no longer scary because I have studied the arts of ending them.
@monkeemike: Wow, that sounds mean. Unintelligible, but mean.
Amen Annalee! Nothing pisses me off more than the whole John Edward talking to the dead BS and similar crap paranormal science.
+ Watch video
@Klebert: A friend of mine (we'll call her "Karen") was taken by a "psychic" that called her and claimed that Karen's father came to her in a vision, urged her to contact her because he had a message for her, and could help her give him any last words she needed to say. The "psychic" said she needed $500 to buy "special candles, oils, and herbs" in order for her to deliver the message. The "psychic" also offered up some additional info about him as well, to confirm (convince) Karen that she was the right Karen... the message was THAT important!
Karen was awed, and asked if some of us could go with her because she was scared. Another idiot agreed to not only drive her, but lend her some money. When I laughed at the idea Karen actually got ANGRY with me for not believing. I calmly explained that the information the "psychic" used could have come from her fathers obituary (Where he worked, the name of his also dead wife, the names of her siblings) and if this was a particularly scummy "psychic", talking with mourners at his wake. Karen eventually "saw the light", but still refused to report the psychic to the police.
Believe me when I say these people are slime, and so good in their craft that they can charm the clothing right off your back.
The Fatal Frame series of video games is based on this premise. The player uses a special camera to banish spirits. The games are very effective in their use of sound and atmosphere. Late nights in the dark with headphones and these games will seriously creep you the hell out. Highly recommended.
I'd be more scared if a ghost came up to me and took *my* picture.
@ggodo: meh not really mean its just that when I get bored I make up my own movies I clearly have not seen this one :) plus I am just jealous and frustrated 'coz I am a cubicle monkey and some one out there gets to makes a sweet living adopting Asian horrors for the western audiences
Man, I was upset about this remake to begin with, but now it's set in Japan instead of Thailand (make more sense if it was set in America) and deals with DIGITAL cameras? This will go in my list of Asian remakes I refuse to see (just about all of them). I was already pissed that when they made the original DVD in America they changed the cover to a very Ring-like design (ghost coming out of a hole) over the other clever DVD covers I've seen for it. I guess I should have known it would have digital cameras... but I'm still upset. Guess the kids nowadays don't know what a dark room is, or these things called "negatives" (omgwtf is that?) and would get confused.
I'm a bit more biased than normal on this because I work in a local photolab, and we USED to have a darkroom and the like, but we had to get rid of it all and go completely digital. I have no problem with digital really (cept it eventually shutting us down) but I miss all the other stuff =(. Guess that's another reason why I liked the original so much.
Ah, a classic case of presuming ones premises. Before we can examine the scientific reasons behind a phenomena one must first establish that it exists in the first place. If you skip the first part you aren't doing science but pure, unfounded speculation.
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