Stalking for Success

DESCRIPTION

To ensure that the best new German filmmaking talent came along to its annual Shocking Shorts film festival, crime and thriller channel 13^th Street went to extreme lengths. It set about filming covert footage, making unwitting directors become the stars of their very own horror film.

Short film festivals have grown in popularity of late, partly due to the fact that shorts are cheaper to make than features and often allow for greater creativity on the part of the director. As the subject matter for participants entering Shocking Shorts is Horror or Mystery, 13^th Street decided to combine the two to lure top filmmaking talent to come to the opening event.

21 up-and-coming German directors were sent an unmarked envelope in the mail containing a DVD and a note reading, ‘Play Me’. The DVD contained several minutes of secretly recorded footage showing the directors walking around their own houses. Only after the footage played did the DVD make clear it was part of a campaign for the Shocking Shorts film festival.

The campaign ran the risk of backfiring if the directors had taken the prank in the wrong way. Of the 21 directors targeted, however, 18 ended up attending the event.

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