August 24, 2006
hallam tagline
Possible tagline for Hallam Foe.
“Sex and Death make a very Weird Combo.”
Hey, I’m just throwing it out there, People. Basically, I was trying to tie in the three words I associate the most with the movie, as seamlessly as possible i.e. Sex. Death. Weird.
[UPDATE:] Dave Mackenzie [Hallam Foe’s direcotr] leaves a comment re. the tagline above:
Hugh,
I am not sure that this tagline works because a) it is kind of alienating because it it quite heavy and b) it doesn’t really represent the film.
For me the most important thing about whatever identity we find for the film is that it is actually representative of the film and all its wierd and wonderful glory.
I really worry that even at this stage you are sending out the wrong signals about the film with this tagline. So I hope you can replace it as soon as possible.
To some extent all my films have concerned myself with sex and death (in fact a huge number of films do). But to me the point about this one is that it’s much more accessible to a wide audience because it captures the joy, pain and exuberance of growing up in a way which is as entertaining as it is emotional. For me this is why I made the film in the first place, because I wanted to make something filled with the spirit of youth — a film which doesn’t offer cheesy answers or patronise its audiences but where the character overcomes his pain and confusion and comes out the other side filled with hope and strength.
Even this might sound too weighty because basically the film is a great bittersweet ride.
I know these are early days in our game of definition. But I hope you get my point and that we (with the help of the blogosphere) find our lovely film’s special identity.
[UPDATE:] Actually, I think I may like this one better:
Anyone got an opinion?
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Hugh,
I am not sure that this tagline works because a) it is kind of alienating because it it quite heavy and b) it doesn’t really represent the film.
For me the most important thing about whatever identity we find for the film is that it is actually representative of the film and all its wierd and wonderful glory.
I really worry that even at this stage you are sending out the wrong signals about the film with this tagline. So I hope you can replace it as soon as possible.
To some extent all my films have concerned myself with sex and death (in fact a huge number of films do). But to me the point about this one is that it’s much more accessible to a wide audience because it captures the joy, pain and exuberance of growing up in a way which is as entertaining as it is emotional. For me this is why I made the film in the first place, because I wanted to make something filled with the spirit of youth — a film which doesn’t offer cheesy answers or patronise its audiences but where the character overcomes his pain and confusion and comes out the other side filled with hope and strength.
Even this might sound too weighty because basically the film is a great bittersweet ride.
I know these are early days in our game of definition. But I hope you get my point and that we (with the help of the blogosphere) find our lovely film’s special identity.
I was caught far more by the inadvertant tag you had in the orginal post. So far both of the tags you have above are too contrived, too.….obvious for what this film (seems) to be about. When you summed it up with:
“Sex. Death. Weird.“
…now that is what caught my attention. Its simple. Its to the point. It leaves room for a lot of blank filling.
I think the coming of age theme is incredibly difficult to capture in a tagline that doesn’t feature the boy to man type of language and even if you do succeed, the risk to my way of thinking is that people say oh “a coming of age movie, big deal.“
Based solely on the original working script, I came away with the idea of the main narrative being a thriller with a quirky voyeuristic protagonist. There are many other strands of course (I was particularly taken with the character of Hallam’s girlfriend) but taken individually — love affairs, coming of age and murder mystery are all common movie themes and unlikely in my view to grab a potential viewer into looking further into the idea of seeing “that Hallam thingy movie” which is how we all initially come to make movie choices.
Thats why I keep coming back to Hallam and taglines that are either him speaking to us the potential audience or someone else speaking about him.
“I spy with my weird eyes“
“If you saw what I saw“
“Everybody needs somebody“
“Fitting in is hard to do“
“Just another confused teenager?“
“He’s weird“
After all the movie title is going to be staring them in the face and I would hope that improvements on these taglines would at least get a reader/potential viewer to want to know who Hallam Foe is, what he is looking at and why.
I’m extremely interested in this film. Me and and very small group of friends are enthusiasts of movies that are a bit weird, and aren’t afraid to address sex, death, and such topics in a non-Hollywood happy ending type of way. We’ve tried to expand this group, but have a hard time at it. The taste for such art seems outside the general communities spectrum. Because of that, I’d wonder what kind of “wider” audience you, and David think would really appreciate such a “bittersweet ride” (those are words that excite my tastebuds)?
I personally enjoy your commentary on the movie, but I’m not liking either of those taglines near as much as how you’ve explained the movie. If I get the chance (showing in Silicon Valley?), I’d definitely see it, but not because I read those tagline.
Congrats on passing the rough cut test!!!!
Just a quick brainstorm. Not really expecting any of these to stick, but maybe they’ll spur other thought directions for you:
o Sex. Death. And a keen eye.
o Who’s watching the watcher?
o He’s young. He’s twisted. And he’s got 20/20 vision.
o Pain. Confusion. Sex. Death. Pimples. And a good pair of binoculars.
—
On another note, I don’t think the title of the movie is serving you all that well. The only thing it’s got going for it is the name of the book. And it’s not a great name for a book either. It really doesn’t tell me anything at all about what I could expect to see. Let’s see.… RAIDERS OF THE LAST ARK IX, HALLAM FOE? Hmmmmmm.
Blue skies
love
Roy
Roy is playing of the same riff I was earlier.…some kind of play with quick, insightful, words that begin to describe what it is about.
Sex. Death. And a keen eye.
Sex. Death. Mispent youth.
dunno.…but something rings for me on this thread. The discussion has definitely piqued my interest in the movie.
life is weird
Welcome
^ you guys should really do some work on your copywriting skills.
Life is weird.
Welcome to the show.
Why don’t you do a cartoon of Hallam? You’re cartoons are the best things you do in terms of distilling down things to there essences and becoming conversation starters?
“watchin’, touchin’, jumpin’, shaggin’, climbin’, feelin’, slurpin’, thinkin’, breathin’, gulpin’, drownin’, flyin’, Hallam Foe”
I would certainly never go and see any film whose tag line contained the word “combo”
Seriously, though, I agree with the above posters — these are too contrived.
I quite liked the last line of one of the (getyourpeople) blog posts as a tag line — “Grow up, I dare you.“
That said, I definitely take the point that jt and roy make above about the structure — perhaps “rhythm” would be a better word — of the tag line. I think you need something that’s captures the spirit of the film in not only content, but form. For that reason (from what little I know of the film), I quite like Colin’s suggestion.
There is, of course, a danger of straying too near “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home.…” with any of this type of thing…
I disagree with Roy about the title, though — it’s intruiging, and as long as you manage to tell your story well enough through your marketing activities (or better, get other people to tell it), people who are liable to be interested in seeing the film will know enough about it anyway. There are plenty of other films whose titles don’t necessarily tell you a great deal about what the film contains (the previously-alluded-to Trainspotting didn’t feature many trains) — and plenty that just consist of people’s names, even (or perhaps especially) if they are slightly unusual — Morvern Callar springs to mind, for example.
Finally (referring to the previous post) — wot no Scottish test screening? Or are you worried about being pegged as a “Scottish movie”?
I don’t know why. But I think the movie needs to capture the poetic brutally real feeling of growing up. And for some reason I can’t stop thinking about the American Beauty quote:
“Janie’s a pretty typical teenager. Angry, insecure, confused. I wish I could tell her that’s all going to pass, but I don’t want to lie to her.“
What do you think?
André Hedetoft
Movie-geek
Just created a game where you get to play with my real life over at http://www.andrehedetoft.com in the quest to turn me into the obvious geek movie director!