Bullets as a Gimmick

An indie producer must go to great lengths to get his film noticed.

by Taso Lagos | Published April 5, 1994

“You want what?” The voice on the other end of the phone asked, politely, but obviously taken aback.

"Some spent bullets," I replied, wondering if my sanity had left me. "What're you going to use them for?" he wanted to know.

"The marketing of my independent feature movie."

"Oh."

There was a beat in his voice. "Well, c'mon down and help yourself."

On a wet Tuesday, I did. The shooting range was north of the city.

Guns and shooting ranges and bullets have always been spooky things to me, but here I was in this large facility, surrounded by a huge display of pistols, semiautomatics, and the sharp, thunderous explosions of bullets going off

The manager directed one of his employees, to help me gather spent slugs. He led me to a room, gave me headsets to protect my ears, plastic glasses and gloves. We then marched through two sets of doors and came to an empty shooting range.

I had entered one of my nightmares. We hardly said a word to each other as we walked to the far end of the room; my mind was too busy being bombarded by issues/05/images and memories. One was of a photo taken during World War II when the Nazis had overrun Paris, showing prisoners executed in an underground bunker exactly like this room. My stomach churned uneasily.

On the ground, behind a rising lip, were thousands of spent slugs. I got down on my knee and began collecting a sackful. Was this in my job description as a filmmaker?

As I drove home through the monsoon, I stole glances at the slug bag in the passenger seat, as if I were hauling spent nuclear fuel. Suddenly three letters came to mind - FBI. The plan was to send the slugs through the mail to distribution companies in Los Angeles. I had forgotten to think whether this was legal or not. I had visions of being arrested.

"Instead of sending the actual slug, why not send a photo of a bullet?" my fiance wanted to know.

Not a bad idea, but I wanted something physical to be send with the marketing letter. A picture would not have the same impact.

"Why not try sending the bullet shell?" a friend and fellow crew member from the movie inquired the next day. "It's lighter than the slug and probably more legal."

Bingo. But that meant returning to the shooting range. I mustered the courage and went back. The manager directed me to the back of the place, where I hunched over a barrel and filled my little brown sack with spent shells.

Once again, I was caught in the vortex of something eerie. To what lengths would I go, I asked myself, to sell this movie, and in the same breath, what a bizarre thing it was that I was doing.

That's when Adam's (Adam Gold, my partner on the project) words about the film biz came to mind: "If it were easy, everybody would be doing it."

My own spin on it:   "If it were sane, everybody would be doing it!"

Next issue you'll find out what, if anything, happened with this marketing effort. MM

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by trade show displays on 2/22/08 at 3:34 am

Nice post!!!

Comment by Free Small Business Marketing on 3/07/08 at 2:53 pm

I think a great way for independent film makers to get a movie picked up is to create a quality short film and post it online. I love watching indy movies, but they are hard to come by.

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