Paul Development Diaries

Why did they film the blogs?

In the first vlog, “What Is Paul? ASK!”, you can see that they’ve set up the blogs in order to let the community interact more with the cast – in normal film sets, questions can be left unanswered, and the community are just there to be an audience, but by letting them send in their questions and taking the time to answer them personally, they’re connecting more with the audience and giving people more of an incentive to watch the film (as they’ve created a relationship between the audience and the cast).

They also allow the user to see behind the scenes of the film, showing the actual creation of the film rather than just showing people the end result. This, again, helps to build a relationship between the audience and the crew, as they feel that they’re with them during the film creation, and not just seeing them act on screen.

There are also random videos as well, with the actors improvising / acting themselves, that again allow the audience to connect more with the crew as they see their normal sides, rather than just the acting that they’re paid to do.

How does this promote the film?

This helps promote the film in several ways. The most obvious way is that they give more depth to the film in general by allowing them to see how it was made – most films just allow you to see one layer, the actual film, but by doing behind-the-scenes videos, they’re showing everything that has gone into making the film and thus helping to portray the true value of the film.

Another reason is that through the videos, the audience have become more connected with the crew, and so have an incentive to see more of them by watching the film – this is a similar effect to soap operas, that have long storylines that keep people coming back for more as questions remain unanswered, and they create a sort of relationship with the characters involved.

How will it support the advertising when the film is out?

When the film comes out, the main use of these videos will probably be as extra features on a DVD, as is common with development diaries and the like. Another way that it could possibly support the advertising is by making the crew well known – the more people there are that’ve viewed the vlogs, the more people there are that will be familiar with the crew. This means that when advertisements say “Starring...” so and so, the higher the chance that someone will go “oh hey, I know them, it’s bound to be good”, and then will feel like going to see the film.