dear white people marketing advice - los angeles film festival 2014 - futurxtv & hhbmedia.com -...

8/12/2019 Dear White People Marketing Advice - Los Angeles Film Festival 2014 - FuTurXTV & HHBMedia.com - 7-15-2014

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" People had a lot of assumptions about me as a black person," Simien says." That gray area toggli ng between how black shoul d I or should I not actdepending on who I 'm around, not even f itti ng in with the black kids at fi rst, notknowing where to fi t in that was the experience that I found myself having as

I became an adul t and entered the workf orce. You sort of reali ze that al l of uswere having that experience."Justin SimienUSA Today1 -18-2014

I t i s a satire about being a Black face in a white placeTyler JamesVarietys Sundance Studio Dear Wh ite People

LAFF 2014 ARTICLE - DEAR WHITE PEOPLE WHOCONTROL THE FATE OF DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

MY 3 BIG MARKETING SUGGESTIONS 7-15-20147-15-2014 - Written By: David L. $Money Train$ Watts Journalist/Film Reviewer

FuTurXTV & HHBMedia.com - David Velo Stewart Editor HHBMedia.comAfter seeing Dear White People (DWP ) at the Gala Premiere screening at the Los AngelesFilm Festival 2014 my natural inclination was to immediately wonder how Lionsgate,Roadside Attraction and Dear White Peoples director Justin Simien were going to marketthe film to Black, White and multicultural Millennials. I have been skeptical about D earWhite Peoples marketing efforts because for the past six months there had not been anyofficial trailer released for Dear White People . There were a few clips from the film and ofcourse the 2012 trailer from the Indiegogo funded DWP film campaign. But even afterreceiving tons of positive Tweets, great film reviews and critical praise at Sundance FilmFestival 2014 and Justin winning the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough

Talent at Sundance 2014 there still was no effort months later to put together a coherenttheatrical trailer for DWP . I spoke to Step hanie Allain, LAFFs over-worked director, afterthe Trophy Dolls premiere screening Q&A that she moderated. And Stephanie assured methat we were only mere days away from Dear Wh ite People releasing its first official trailer.Stephanie did thank me for being supportive of her film and I thought DWP was on track.

David L. $Money Train$ Watts FuTurXTV HHBMedia.com [email protected] www.hhbmedia.com David Velo Stewart
mailto:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]


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After the Dear White People LAFF 2014 Gala Premiere Q&A from Elvis Mitchell wasover And I gotta say this there was no plausible excuse why the audience, who was mainlywhite and highly supportive of the film, should be denied asking Dear White People s stars,director and producers questions. New Black films need Q&A to elicit honest questions andresponses that you will never get from an Elvis Mitchell safe and predictable moderatedQ&A session. Anyway, when Elvis Mitchell dropped the mike and said the DWP Q&A wasabruptly over I walked over to Justin and asked him was and his DWP crew at LAFF 2014going to attend the BET Awards at the end of the week. Justin looked a bit confused andsaid he had no plans on going. So the day after the LAFF DWP Premiere there was a teasertrailer released for Dear White People and a week later we get a new DWP parody Webshort. So after hearing Justins BET Awards answer, seeing DWPs recent viral PR videosand dealing with aftermath of HHBMedia.com being denied access to the Dear Wh itePeople Red Carpet. I then decided to post-pone writing my film review of Dear Whi tePeople and instead do a lot of research about how DWP at LAFF 2014 was tracking on theWeb. I would like to now give the white executives at Lionsgate and Roadside Attractionsand Justin Simien my very simple three minority film marketing tips, cultural observationsor Hollywood/Indie Black film survival lessons for the marketing of Dear White People :

1. Do not bite the Black hands that can feed you!

How To Fake You Watched The BET Awards: http://youtu.be/MlwF-bta5pg?list=UUOD_D_0RQM0n_xCqz3WjzJw

First, when I innocently asked Justin if he or his films cast were going to the BET Awardsit was not because I think the BET Awards is some great iconic Black event to attend. No,my purpose for Dear Whi te People s Black and white stars to be at the BET Awards is sothey can walk the Red Carpet and get their photos and videos tagged and circulated onGoogle, Bing and Yahoo searches. Yo u dont have to like even care or like the 2014 BETAwards, but even the Washington Post has to put links to the BET Awards Red Capetphotos on their top news headers. And no sane person can deny that the BET Awards isone of the highest watched programs among Black households and it is one of the mostTweeted TV events the past five years in a row. Half way through this years BET Awardsthey announced that they had over 8 million Tweets with #BETAwards. And the 2014 BET

http://youtu.be/MlwF-bta5pg?list=UUOD_D_0RQM0n_xCqz3WjzJwhttp://youtu.be/MlwF-bta5pg?list=UUOD_D_0RQM0n_xCqz3WjzJwmailto:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://youtu.be/MlwF-bta5pg?list=UUOD_D_0RQM0n_xCqz3WjzJwhttp://youtu.be/MlwF-bta5pg?list=UUOD_D_0RQM0n_xCqz3WjzJw


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Awards was cables #1 award show this year with 7.9 million viewers. It also had over 11Million Tweets making the BET Awards 2014 was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter!

Also, from a point of generating traffic on Twitter it would have been helpful to have theDWP cast and Justin at the BET Awards and then live tweeting about them on theirTwitter accounts. Then the next day if they still wanted to release a DWP Web skitclowning the BET Awards then all the DWP cast and Justin could comment on how theirreal BET experiences compare to their DWP skit to drive further social media traffic andinterest in Dear White People. Also DWPs How To Fake You Watched The BET

Awards would actually be funnier and more on p oint to helping promote Dear Whi te Peoples central theme of being a satire about being a Black face in a white space if the firstguy asking the brotha if he saw last nights BET Awards was white. It is more in keepingthat someone white at ones job or school would ask there Black friends to tell them aboutthe BET Awards they did not watch themselves or they did watch the BET Awards and

just assumed every Black person they know watched the BET Awards, too. But the way theBET Awards skit plays out now with only Black actors makes it seem more appropriate fora film called Dear Black People. And also find it ironic that DWP would try to clown theBET Awards at the exact moment that comedian and DWP s producer Lean Waithe@hillmangrad got a production deal with Queen Latifah s Flavor Unit to make a pilot for

BET for Lenas hit YouTube series Twenties. The same silly BET that DWP is makingfun of is the same smart BET that actually is giving Lena, who is one of DWPs top creativetalents, a special chance to blow up and become a successful TV producer/writer. Lenawould then be able to hire Justin to direct episodes of Twenties and even put DWPs castin Twenties as well. How bad can BET be if it would greenlight Twenties ? And BET actually might be the only TV network that would seriously back Lenas new TV series?

PART ONE Twenties Pilot Presentation: http://youtu.be/TrM7pFddo8g

I seriously doubt next month that Lionsgate, Roadside and Justin will be whipping out aparody on how to fake watching the MTV Awards to equally clown the many silly whiteassumptions about their favorite music award show. And the same Black folks thatwatched two Tyler Perry films before the 2014 BET Awards started and the mainly Blackfolks that were posting and sharing 11 MILLION TWEETS!; are the same young, vocal,smart, opinionated and impressionable Blacks that Lionsgate will have to be courting 24/7with non-stop TV ads on BET to go out in mass on October 17 to see Dear Wh ite People .

http://youtu.be/TrM7pFddo8gmailto:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://youtu.be/TrM7pFddo8g


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And I gotta stop right now and seriously go against my journalistic instincts and personallyput Justin Simien on blast about throwing Lee Daniels The Butler in his DWP TeaserT railer as a simplistic white story driven racial film in the tradition of The Bl indside and The Help . When I first saw the teaser trailer it struck me odd that DWP would lump inThe Butl er which had a white screenwriter, but was clearly the vision of Lee Daniels who

previously made two other great indie films Monsters Ball and Precious . And trust me Iam no great fan of Lee Daniels The Butler you can read my HHBMedia.com review below:

Lee Daniels The Butler Review & Oscar Snub Debate By Money Train:http://www.hiphopbattle.com/2014/01/lee-daniels-the-butler-review-oscar-snub-debate/

But I couldnt figure out why Dear Wh ite People went out of its way to throw Lee DanielssThe Butl er under the bus and not another white directed and produced racial film like 42 or Quentin Tarantinos way more offensive, racist and 115 Niggers and counting DjangoUnchained . But then I happen to watch Justin on a YouTube video from a Q&A after aSeattle screening of Dear Whi te People . There were over 3,800 views and 5 Comments. Imight ve skipped watching it because it looks kinda like a shaky iPhone video. But I amglad I did get through the whole Q&A because I heard Justin say something that easilyexplains why Lee Daniels The Butler was included and dissed in the DWP Teaser Trailer:

We have a great distributor in Roadside. And if people show up to the theater and you knowsupport th e f il m and love the fi lm. And the fi lm makes money. Then thi s f il m can go on to be acomp for the next cr azy, weir d eccentr ic B lack f il mmaker that wants to do somethi ng di ff erent.Th e I ndustry sort of runs on what was successful last year. And th e reason why we see thesame type of Bl ack movies over and over again is because we are just tr ying to r emake TheBu tler and The H elp. And you kn ow. Tyler Perr y presents whatever. We are sort of r emakin gwhatever made money last year. And uh. Thats the Industry. Thats just the w ay it works. I treall y depends on how we embrace th is new voices that are coming up. And I am not the onlyoneJustin SimienQ&A Seattle Screening of Dear White People

So let me say right off that Lee Daniels The Butler does not have 40 producers becauseHollywood was obsessed with making any civil rights film they could get their hands on.There are 40 producers on Lee Daniels The Butler because Lee Daniel could not getHollywood to make his film no matter how many white stars played leading roles or thefact that The Bli ndside and The Help were very successful at the box office. You can easilyGoogle No stu dio wanted to make The Butler and one quickly finds a quote below:

http://www.hiphopbattle.com/2014/01/lee-daniels-the-butler-review-oscar-snub-debate/mailto:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.hiphopbattle.com/2014/01/lee-daniels-the-butler-review-oscar-snub-debate/


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Whats fascinating, and even surprising, is these actors came to work on this fi lm and theylost money, all of them. Because no studio wanted to do the movie they didnt think it wasimportant. B ut nobody wanted to do the movie. No studio thought i t was wor thy to be seen.What does that say? Bu t the actors know. Actors know. And tha ts my saving grace, becauseactors financed this film. Its comfortingLee DanielsMovie City News 8-19-2013

There is no excuse for Justin to be so nave that he , with Stephanie Allains blessing, wouldwrongly think the box office success of The Bli ndside and The Help paved the way for L ee

Daniels The Butler . Even after Tarantinos Django Unchained was his highest grossing

film ever, $162 Million in the states and over $425 Million worldwide, Paramount Studiosstill refused to produce or distribute Steve McQueens 12 Year a Slave . Brad Pitts Plan Bhas a Paramount production/distribution deal and Brad is a top 10 A-list global actor. Butnone of that meant Paramount wanted 12 Years a Slave . As an indie Black filmmaker thatkeeps getting raves and is toute d as the next hot director in Holly wood; Justin has toknow or fake like he knows about indie Black films or Black film trends. If you dont knowwhat you are talking about you should Google it first before stupidly putting it in a DWPTeaser Trailer that you want other Black film fans, critics and supporters to take seriously.

2. Dear Whi te People needs to be making viral videos or parodyvideos that actually are about real life racial and politicalissues in America also supports the DWP themes in the film.

I'll say it now as loudly as I can that if the white and any Black execs at Lionsgate andRoadside Attractions who are releasing "Dear White People" do not know how to use thevery timely and real example of Maya Peterson. After Maya posted an Instagram photomaking fun of white preppy culture and elites, she was unfairly forced to resign as student-president of Lawrenceville, which is a private and one of the most expensive White prepschools in the country. Maya is a Lesbian and believes in "Pro-Black Power . Even the factthat there were "cries from some [Lawrenceville] students suggesting that the electionshe'd [Maya Peterson] won had been fixed" can be directly taken from "Dear WhitePeoples main narrative. A DW P publicist could not make up a better or more directlyrelevant national media story. And just a three weekends ago Maya Peterson was a gueston MSNBCs Melissa Harris -Perry show where she detailed her personal experiences ofBeing a Black face in a white s pace. Maya needs to be an honorary cast member of DWP .

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Black Prep School President Steps Down After Mocking White Classmates

By Beth Greenf ield, Shine Staff | H ealthy Living 23 hour s ago

Maya Peterson in the controversial photo. Photo: Instagram via BuzzfeedThe mostexpensive prep school i n the country, the Lawrenceville School, spent much of its springsemester mired in racial tensions as its first black student-body president was forced to stepdown for mocking wh ite male students on I nstagram In the photo that Maya Petersonposted of herself to Instagram in March when she was a senior, she poses as a typicalLawrenceville boi wearing a Yale sweatshirt and duck boots, holding a hockey stick.It's hashtagged #romney2016, #confederate, and #peakedinhighschool.

I understand why I hurt people's feelings, but I didn't become president to make surerich white guys had more representation on campus, Peterson told BuzzFeed , whichreported the story on Monday. Lets be honest. They're not the ones that feeluncomfortable here. Peterson graduated from Lawrenceville, a private school nearPrinceton, N.J., in June.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE BELOW:

https://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clear

Maya told Melissa she is attending Wesleyan College, which is a private liberal universitythat is very similar in real life to DWPs fictional Winchester University because back inthe mid- 90s Wesleyan had its own real life DWP moment when it tried to reverse integratenon-Blacks into the all Black Malcolm X House Dorm. It was an important media storyback then about campus tolerance and the future of Black identity at predominately whiteuniversities. The Malcom X House is still a divisive issue at Wesleyan, so one could easily

see how it be a highly realistic depiction of Dear White Peoples Winchester University.

Malcolm X House Increases Presence: http://wesleyanargus.com/2012/10/25/malcolm-x-house-revamps-efforts-to-engage-students-community/

https://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/author/beth-greenfield-shine-staff-ycn-1690872/https://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/healthy-living/http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-private-high-schools-us-2013-8?op=1http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-private-high-schools-us-2013-8?op=1http://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/what-happens-when-a-prep-schools-black-student-president-mochttp://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/what-happens-when-a-prep-schools-black-student-president-mochttp://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/what-happens-when-a-prep-schools-black-student-president-mochttps://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clearhttps://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clearhttps://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clearhttp://wesleyanargus.com/2012/10/25/malcolm-x-house-revamps-efforts-to-engage-students-community/http://wesleyanargus.com/2012/10/25/malcolm-x-house-revamps-efforts-to-engage-students-community/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://wesleyanargus.com/2012/10/25/malcolm-x-house-revamps-efforts-to-engage-students-community/http://wesleyanargus.com/2012/10/25/malcolm-x-house-revamps-efforts-to-engage-students-community/https://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clearhttps://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/black-prep-school-president-steps-down-after-mocking-white-classmates-171901010.html?cache=clearhttp://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/what-happens-when-a-prep-schools-black-student-president-mochttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-private-high-schools-us-2013-8?op=1http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-private-high-schools-us-2013-8?op=1https://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/healthy-living/https://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/author/beth-greenfield-shine-staff-ycn-1690872/


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All-black Dorm Dispute Over, But Emotions Still Unsettled:http://articles.courant.com/1996-04-26/news/9604260478_1_non-black-students-minority-students-student-activism

And on top of that in just a few weeks since DWPs LAFF premiere you have Anthony ofOpie and Anthony getting fired for sending racist Tweets, white folks losing theirpatriotic twisted minds over illegal immigrants being bused into their towns, Sarah Palincalling for Obama to be impeached, the controversial Hobby Lobby Supreme Courtverdict, Florida cops resigning because they are in the KKK, Fox News being 24/7 cluelessabout race even with Stacey Dash as a host or President Barack Obama being stupidlybeing sued by John Boehner and Republicans for doing his damn job and nothing else!Also, this Fall is a pivotal mid-term election year, so Dear White People should be leadingthe way to parody the GOPs massive minority and college voter suppression campaignsand the Tea Party s primarily racist motivated hatred of Barack Obama and Obamacare.

Lionsgate and DWP's director Justine Simien need to stop wasting time making silly DWPMore You Know About Black People parody videos called Not To Be Racist, But...,Do Black Love Fried Chicken? and of course Are Black Men Really Bigger. JustinsDWP YouTube crew needs to focus its many viral video making talents on clowning thereal racism people of color experience and collegiate diversity issues that are happeningnow and all over this country 24/7! I personally do not believe in accidental racism inAmerica in the past, present or future. But I suspect Justin Simien is a bit more forgivingof white folks in general. Later when I write my DWP film review Ill explain how that lackadaisical post-Obama racial attitude crosses over into Dear White People s storylines.

http://articles.courant.com/1996-04-26/news/9604260478_1_non-black-students-minority-students-student-activismhttp://articles.courant.com/1996-04-26/news/9604260478_1_non-black-students-minority-students-student-activismmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://articles.courant.com/1996-04-26/news/9604260478_1_non-black-students-minority-students-student-activismhttp://articles.courant.com/1996-04-26/news/9604260478_1_non-black-students-minority-students-student-activism


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The truth is, my fil m reall y isn' t about " white racism" or r acism at all. As I see it r acism issystemic and i s in herently ref lected in any honest story about l if e as a minori ty in thi s countr y.What my f il m i s about however is identity. I t' s about the diff erence between how th e masscul ture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves totrul y be Justin SimienHuffington Post6 -14-2012

Nobody wants to be called a racist, so I think when people hear the title Dear White People,already they want to take a defensive posture. But my movie isnt necessarily about racism. Ithi nk that r acism i s a fact of li fe and any movie dealing wi th bl ack issues has to take place in aworld where thats reflected. But my movie is really about race identity its about who youare, how the world sees you, and how that affects your potential.Justin Simien

If the Dear Whi te People YouTube page does not start cranking out and posting multipleparody videos that call out erroneous and simplistic white attitudes about race and racism,then Justin is going to get clowned by Black Twitter about these silly Black Card videos.

3. With a huge amount of diversity on the upcoming 2014-2015Network TV schedule there can be no excuse why Lionsgateand Roadside Attractions will not reach all of Dear Whi te

Peoples key audience demos in late September and October.

What a gift Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions lucked into this year. The major TVnetworks (minus CBS) this Fall are full of new Black TV shows with lead stars or showswith highly diverse minority casts, such as ABC s black -ish, Christel, Fresh Off The

Boat , How to Get Away With Murder, and Selfie . ABC of course has Scandals hugeBlack female audience as well. NBC has Bad Judge, Marry Me, The Mysteries of Laura and State of Affairs , which right now will premiere a month after DWP isreleased on November 17, 2014. Fox has new shows like Gotham and Utopia to go withtheir multi-racial hits like The Mindy Project , The New Girl and Sleepy Hollow .

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And CW has only their new Flash and their returning multi-racial shows Arrow , The100 , The Originals and The Vampire Diaries that would appeal to potential DWPaudiences. And I strongly suspect that almost every racial theme or insider Black joke inDear White People might be explored in the first three episodes of Anthony Andersonsblack -ish. So there are beyond ample opportunities for Lionsgate and Roadside

Attractions to aggressively spend money in the Fall for Dear White People to reachmillions upon millions of Black, young and multicultural moviegoers with targeted TV ads.

Dear White People Official Trailer:http://youtu.be/XwJhmqLU0so?list=PLS3H3pmF9fVf4LEcZXu-u60sVU8ylbxae

I also did an extensive search for any mention of Dear White People s Los Angeles FilmFestival 2014 Red Carpet photos or videos on a wide variety of popular highly traffickedcultural/entertainment/progressive Websites, such as, Afropunk.com, BET.com,Buzzfeed.com Blackfilm.com, ClutchMagazine.com, Colorlines.com, Lee BaileysEURWeb.com, TheGrio.com, HollywoodReporter.com, HuffingtonPost.com,

HuffingtonPost.com/BlackVoices, Indiewire.com, Indiewire.com/Shadowandact,MadaNoire.com, NYTimes.com, Rollingstone.com, TheRoot.com, UsaToday.com,Variety.com, WashingtonPost.com and TheWrap.com. I could find a few mentions of DWP at the LAFF 2014 on multiple articles on Hollywood Reporter and Variety. But everywhereelse on the sites I researched I found nothing. So one has to figure that now with the releaseof the official Dear Wh ite People theatrical trailer that it will generate as many or than the3085 and growing Comments on YouTube that the DWP Teaser Trailer has generated.

And also hopefully people will be engaged and commenting on the full DWP trailer when itis reposted on various Black or multi-cultural/entertainment/progressive sites. So those aremy three marketing tips, criticism and advice for the white folks at Lionsgate and RoadsideAttractions who are ultimately controlling the fate of Dear White People . It is not enough tohope or act like Dear Wh ite People will be a big box office hit because Black audiences and

filmgoers in general have been dying to see a new and powerful Black film that is not madeby Tyler Perry, Kevin Hart or a few misguided white Hollywood producers that make so -called stereotypical Black films like The Bli ndside and The Help . There has to be a betteror more focused effort to drive hype and interest into the October 17, 2014 national releaseof Dear Whi te People . Justin Simien can hate on Tyler Perry 24/7, but Lionsgate managedto correctly market his Bad Black films so they made almost $1 Billion in overall profits!

http://youtu.be/XwJhmqLU0so?list=PLS3H3pmF9fVf4LEcZXu-u60sVU8ylbxaehttp://youtu.be/XwJhmqLU0so?list=PLS3H3pmF9fVf4LEcZXu-u60sVU8ylbxaemailto:[email protected]://www.hhbmedia.com/http://www.hhbmedia.com/mailto:[email protected]://youtu.be/XwJhmqLU0so?list=PLS3H3pmF9fVf4LEcZXu-u60sVU8ylbxae

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