Blair Witch did it and Moulin Rouge is doing it: film-hype over the Net.
After the incredible success of the thriller movie The Blair Witch Project, which was commonly attributed to exposure generated over the Internet, film-makers have become increasingly aware of the marketing potential of the medium for new release films.
Australian film-maker Baz Luhrmann is attempting to cash in on the phenomenon with his new screen musical Moulin Rouge set in late 19th century Paris starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.
The man responsible for Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and Juliet will be making pre-release material of his newest project available to audiences via the film's Internet site.
The difference between Moulin Rouge's site and any other film-related site, according to its content creator Dan Shwarze, is the nature of the content itself.
-We've been filming production and 'behind the scenes' stuff 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we've come up with more like an e-news or talk show type of thing" said Mr Shwarze, speaking via a link-up from Sydney to audiences at Netfest in Melbourne this week.
A similar talk-show style site promoting Star Wars is already up, and although Mr Shwarze would not elaborate who came first, he did say the delayed release of Moulin Rouge, originally planned for mid December and now not expected until June next year, had meant Star Wars released its site first.
Despite this, the Moulin Rouge site remains unique because the material has been shot in the visually fragmented and frenetic style for which Baz Luhrmann is famous, he said.
This type of material is a web creator's nightmare and an audience's dream, according to Mr Shwarze, who said it is the opposite of the type of style with which existing streaming technology can easily cope. Encoding it into QuickTime was difficult.
Schwarze says the creative team managed it - and in a world-first - the conference audience was treated to a sneak preview of one of the short film segments of which the site will consist.
The site, URL as yet undisclosed, is expected to be available on December 15.
