December
30
Harvey Milk Doc Scores Online
While Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk, starring Sean Penn as the murdered San Francisco gay activist, is enjoying a strong award-season run, many are also discovering Rob Epstein's classic 1984 doc, the Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk. And they're finding it online, thanks to the unremitting efforts of Cinetic Digital Rights Management.
Cinetic's Matt Dentler helped to forge a deal with New Yorker Film's Dan Talbot to release some of their library titles in the video space online. With the combination of Milk's opening and the controversy over the passing of the gay marriage ban Proposition 8, "it was a perfect storm," Dentler says, to release The Times of Harvey Milk, a history of gay rights in California. Cinetic rushed to make the film available on iTunes, and VOD on Amazon.com. To promote the doc, Dentler did a number of Facebook blasts, posted a 90 second excerpt of the film on YouTube channel, and Epstein did interviews on blogs and gay social networking sites.
The movie swiftly moved to Amazon's number one doc rental, and iTunes' number two indie rental (after Ed Burns' Purple Violets). As soon as the pic hit Hulu Monday, it soared to the top of their charts as well. "It's a way for a lot of people to consume a movie that they otherwise wouldn't have," says Dentler.
Naturally, all this exposure leads people to links so that they can watch the trailer, and buy or rent the movie. Another classic, Richard Linklater's Slacker, is Cinetic's other digital space hit on YouTube, Hulu, iTunes and Amazon VOD. "This proves that different portals attract different audiences," says Dentler.
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Milk was a great man. This is going to sound really stupid, but i first learned about him in an issue of Ultimate X-Men comic book, lol.
Posted by: UGLY DEAF MUSLIM PUNK GURL! | December 31, 2008 at 07:48 AM