The Real Thing
Looking to enter a filmmaking competition involving “branded entertainment”? MOFILM and Tropfest winner, Abe Forsythe, has a few pointers.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re making a film to be used as branded content or whatever else,” says Abe Forsythe (pictures with the hobbit at Tropfest). “The story should always be the most important thing, and if it doesn't tie in with whatever the parameters might be for branded content, then you shouldn't try and force something to be something that it’s not. My film for Pepsi had nothing to do with Pepsi, and that’s why it seemed to work.”
An actor of renown (he’s given fine performances on TV’s Laid, Marking Time, Always Greener and Tripping Over, and will soon be seen playing John Cornell on Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War) and a gifted feature writer/director (his 2000 debut, Ned, is an uproarious molestation of Australian history and iconography), Abe Forsythe also knows a thing or two when it comes to filmmaking in the corporate arena. In 2010, he took out the top prize (in a crowded field of over 700 entrants) in a competition run by MOFILM (“Inspiring filmmakers to create videos for big brands and social causes”), on behalf of soft drink giant, Pepsi. The brief was to incorporate the concept of “60 Seconds To Refresh Your World” into a short film, and, as Forsythe says, his snappy, funny and ultimately heartwarming entry had nothing to do with fizz, bubbles, or recycled aluminum and plastic. The simple story of a harried everyman whose life hits an unexpected upturn thanks to a surprisingly persuasive sat-nav device, the one-minute short, GPS, did not feature Pepsi in either form, name, or suggestion. That was far from a hindrance, and Forsythe beat out a strong field of filmmakers from around the world to take out the competition. “You’ve got to not think about the corporate element,” Forsythe says. “I didn’t think about Pepsi.”
In today’s changing media climate – with the web opening up literal universes of possibility, while simultaneously swallowing others up whole – Forsythe sees corporate branded entertainment as a new and not yet wholly tapped source of funding. Though GPS was part of an actual competition, this is just the tip of the iceberg. “The best way to approach it is if you’ve already got an idea or a concept for a web series or something like that,” Forsythe offers, “and you think that it fits a certain demographic, is to then go to a company that services that demographic, and see if you can get them to finance it in some way. That said, it’s an area that nobody has really figured out yet. Nobody has really cracked it completely.”
Does Forsythe see filmmaking competitions involving corporate sponsorship and branding as a worthwhile route for young up-and-comers to take? “Yeah, definitely,” he replies. “As long as it doesn’t restrict or hinder the kind of storytelling that they want to be experimenting with, then it’s pretty good. I think that you need to be really free with the kind of films that you make when you’re starting out, and that’s the only way that you learn about the craft.”
Will we see more of these types of competitions? “They’re in their infancy at the moment, and people are still trying to figure them out,” Forsythe says. “If you used the term, ‘branded entertainment’, a couple of years ago, nobody would have known what you were talking about. The term is really out there now. Advertisers are recognising the power of a breakout video on the net; if something becomes really popular, it can get millions of hits. People will actually seek them out, which can be worth more than an ad which just flashes by on the television. Advertisers are really starting to wake up to the potential. The problem is that nobody can tell what’s going to break out, and what’s going to remain unnoticed among the cat videos, and people shitting in jars.”
Abe Forsythe’s work certainly got noticed. Around the same time that GPS took out MOFILM’s Pepsi competition, he also nabbed the top award at Tropfest with his short, Shock. Though not explicitly “branded content”, Tropfest does demand the use of a signature item, and engages filmmakers to work within a set framework. “I’ve got things that I’ve been working on for years that now have a fighting chance,” Forsythe told FilmInk just after his big win. “There’s no other place in the world where you can do that with a short film.”
Photo by Gaye Gerard/Getty Images
