Behind the scenes of the Never Ending Movie, ‘Online Milo Sajna’

After causing a buzz in the trade media and agencies with an innovative marketing teaser campaign and a long list of big ticket acquisitions, India’s first interactive movie channel ‘‘&pictures’’ ventured into previously unexplored territory by going all out to make a movie in just 48 hrs! ‘& pictures’ has created India’s first crowd-sourced film in just a week. From 5th August the channel invited entries for online users to name the film that they will co-create on the channels micro-site,www.andpictures.in. Over 7th and 8th August, users shared their storylines and dialogues for the film via Twitter and Facebook. The best ideas were then aggregated onto the micro-site where users could log in and view how the story is progressing while contributing to the writing of the script.

 In the world of film and television, channels need to constantly find new ways and means to differentiate themselves from others and tell people that they are more than what they are known for. So when it came to the launch of &pictures, the channel knew exactly what they wanted to achieve.

  

The need for a big idea was felt which would not only make ‘&’ synonymous with ‘more’, but also create conversations on the digital platform about the same. The campaign had to meet the objectives and reach the correct audience. The team wanted to do something that had never been attempted before anywhere. It was thought that since people were being asked to write the script, why not take it one step further and get it shot into a movie, WHILE IT IS BEING WRITTEN! A real time movie making experience where people would write their ideas for the script and the best ones would be selected and shot immediately with a professional team of film makers, actors, editors - the works, sparing no expense! This was the birth of The Never &ing Story!

With the never ending movie, social media users were given a chance to continuously engage themselves with the brand and do something that had never been done before. By just tweeting or typing their ideas in 140 characters, they were rewarded with a chance to fame and their very own movie which was shot by the channel and released within the week. It would be the fastest movie ever made!

The campaign was split into 3 phases –

a)     Naamkaran (Aug 5^th/6^th) – Where people had to suggest a name for the movie over the first 2 days of the campaign. The campaign microsite had the plot and the characters listed down and the audience had to decide the name. Over 1700 names were submitted via the microsite and 800 over twitter.

b)     Kahaani main tweet (Aug 7^th to 9^th) – Where people had to start adding to the script. They were given 8 scenes, one at a time and they simply had to build those scenes. The best suggestions were taken in real time and were added to the script. People just had to be aware of the STORY SO FAR and suggest in 140 characters what happens next. With over 5000 entries for the story and over 3000 contributors this was truly a movie for the people and by the people.

c)     Madh Island main Shootout (Aug 8^th – 10^th) – And then started the shoot. The suggestions from the Janta were compiled into a script and shooting began. 60 hours of continuous grueling shoot, made this dream of the people a reality.

And finally, the movie that was named and written by the JANTA was released on August 12^th onwww.andpictures.in

Has it been a success? Well, with more than 41000 users touching the campaign, at an engagement rate of more than 20% and with over 6000 entries, it sure was a rollicking ride. If there was ever a 100 Crore movie online, well this is it!