Producer Thanks Pirates For Stealing His Film
Written by Ernesto on November 13, 2007Eric Wilkinson, the producer of the independent film “The Man from Earth”, wrote an email to RLSlog in which he thanks them for the free promotion they gave him. “In the future, I will not complain about file sharing” he wrote, “when I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the net myself!”
All the attention for his film was boosted by a positive review on RLSlog, a weblog that reviews some of the new releases on BitTorrent. It turns out that a lot of people who downloaded the movie off BitTorrent liked the movie, as they started to write positive reviews on Amazon, IMDB and other websites.
Wilkinson was pleasantly surprised by all the attention. He explained in his email to RLSlog that the people who illegally downloaded his film actually helped to promote it.
He writes: “Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded “The Man From Earth” has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!”
To illustrate this, on IMDB the film received close to 700 votes with an average rating of 8.2 which makes it one of the most popular movies of the last 2 weeks.
Wilkinson continues to praise the pirates and adds: “What you guys have done here is nothing short of amazing. In the future, I will not complain about file sharing. YOU HAVE HELPED PUT THIS LITTLE MOVIE ON THE MAP!!!! When I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the net myself!”
This example once again illustrates what a powerful promotion tool filesharing networks are, especially for independent productions with a small budget.
Previously: Mininova Enters List of 50 Most Popular Sites on the Internet
Next: Leading BitTorrent Admins Discuss The Future of BitTorrent
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Hello everyone. GLAD YOU LOVED THE MOVIE! (or at least liked it). Thanks so much for your support. It will not be forgotten.
Please post more comments on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/board/threads/
Thanks.
Eric D. Wilkinson
I really liked this movie, and inspired me to buy the book :)
This movie played with my brain. :)
I just sent the guy a little money and I haven’t even downloaded or seen the film. Just the idea of someone being supportive was worth a few bucks. Bravo!
This movie was amazing! There is not a better word for it then amazing! I would buy this movie over and over. Great storyline and great acting! Great Job!!
awesome Film. A must watch . Goobimama recommends.
http://goobimama.blogspot.com
Indeed, as an indie writer (the big publishers want nothing to do with me because I’m a relative unknown and refuse to pay a literary agent) I’ve found letting people get the ebook version of my novels for free is good advertising before the print version is ready for sale. A fellow I managed to convince to do the same has made more sales than he thought possible of both print and ebook releases by putting out a free copy of his book for distribution. Indeed more sales than a similar book made going through the convention channels which had an advertising budget.
I can’t lie I watch it free too
check out my site http://allysource.com/
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We, the filmmakers behind “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth” understand that this is a film many sci-fi fans just couldn’t wait until 11/13/07 to see. And we especially understand that if you live outside the United States, you’ve had absolutely no way of knowing when this film might be coming to your local cinema, video store, or TV… if ever! Indeed, all international rights to the movie are still available.
And as a result you may have downloaded the film from one of the many torrent (or other) sites available. Chances are, you paid nothing to do so. But please understand that we are just some independent filmmakers who put everything we had into our little movie, and you really hurt us directly when you downloaded the movie illegally.
Judging from the postings at IMDB.com, we see that the vast majority of you quite like the film; many of you even love the film and have watched it repeatedly.
We made this movie with a great deal of love, sacrifice and effort on a low budget. But as low as the budget was, it was still a LOT of money to us, as well as to the people who trusted us with their investment to go ahead and make such an unusual, even controversial film.
So we are making an unusual request… asking you to return the love, if you will:
Please visit http://www.manfromearth.com, and make some sort of donation in exchange for the enjoyment our movie brought you. It could be fifty cents, it could be fifty dollars. Perhaps you feel the average weekly video store rental is a fair amount. Whatever it is, it might be small to you, but if every single person who downloaded the movie — heck, if only the people who LIKED the movie — donated a few dollars, would certainly help get us to breakeven. Just go to http://www.manfromearth.com and click on “donate” (you don’t even need to have an account). The address to use is ewilkinson100@comcast.net.
The money you donate will go DIRECTLY towards everone who worked on and invested in our dream. And who knows… if we ever do break even on “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth”, maybe we can go make another intelligent, thought-provoking film.
Thank you very, very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Eric D. Wilkinson - Producer
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