Marketing

The official Raw Productions statement on the marketing of the film (also available here: http://raw-london.com/?page_id=251) follows:

On Monday 17th May 2010 our first feature, Just For The Record was released on DVD.

The film is a comedy, that takes a light-hearted look at the pitfalls that face the cast and crew of a low-budget production. In spite of this, distributors, Metrodome Group, chose to market it as a gangster movie, resulting in minimal publicity for a film which starred Rik Mayall, Danny Dyer and Stephen Berkoff, amongst others.

On seeing the DVD cover, we became concerned that Metrodome’s strategy for promoting the film would give potential audiences a false impression. To that end, we raised an objection with the company, asking them to redesign the cover. They refused to do so. The only concession they made to us was to include an alternate image on the reverse of the cover that gives a more accurate impression of the film. Unfortunately, this will not be seen until after the film has been purchased.

We discussed among ourselves the idea of taking the film to another distributor, who would promote it more accurately, but by this stage Metrodome had us tied in to a contract, and we were unable to move away. Now thousands of members of the public will be potentially furious as this film’s misrepresentation means they got something they weren’t expecting.

As a business, and as filmmakers, we always want as many people as possible to see our movies, but we also want them to choose to do so based on the right information. We’re dismayed that viewers have been duped in this way, and warn other film makers not to fall into this trap.