10/31/07

THE CLOVERFIELD TRAILER - SEEN!

Well, no sooner had I posted about the upcoming possibility of the Cloverfield/1-18-08 trailer than someone claims to have seen it. If this source is true, than the trailer will pop up for the Beowulf movie.

CHUD.com, a great movie site, has an exclusive post about the viewing of the Cloverfield trailer and the title the author saw. So here you, ready or not, the description of the Cloverfield trailer. The author even claims the movie title will be "Cloverfield". Or at least during the version he saw. There still is a few polished shots that will be added to the version the author saw and if you have kept up with forums tracking the movie you'll notice some of the aspects of the trailer sound like earlier leaked storylines

I've got the whole post quoted below for your reading. Let the debates begin. (original post here)


"I have seen the trailer for the monster movie coming from producer JJ Abrams on January 18, 2008. The trailer, which was dated last week and lasts 2 minutes and 16 seconds, will debut in front of Beowulf on November 16th, and it's supposed to be when the title is announced. The version of the trailer I saw had the title attached at the end, so unless this title card was a temporary placeholder for the real title, this movie is called... wait for it...

Cloverfield.

Yep, the name we heard from the start. This does make me think that maybe this trailer, marked as Trailer #1, V.17, with "Newest FX Shots", could change between now and the 16th, especially in regards to the name. We'll see. In the meantime, here's a rundown of what I saw in the trailer (based on the notes I took when I was shown a poor quality copy of the trailer. I was only allowed to watch it twice):

It opens with text:

Multiple sightings of case designate 'Cloverfield'
Camera retrieved at incident site 'U.S. 447'
(Area formerly known as Central Park)

Then we see the footage from the teaser trailer, mostly fast forwarded up to the end, with the explosion and the Statue of Liberty's head landing in the middle of the street. Then there's a guy speaking into the camera.

Guy: My name is Robert Hawkins. Approximately seven hours ago, someTHING attacked the city.

There are flashes of chaos. Much of the trailer is made up of split second moments, and when combined with the fact that it's extreme shaky cam style and that I was watching a terrible copy, it can be hard to make things out. There's a helicopter shot of the headless Statue of Liberty.

Guy again: I have no idea what it is. If you found this,if you're watching this thing, you know more about it than i do.

Then there's a shot of jets flying overhead, in daylight.

A title card reads 'From producer JJ Abrams'

There's more flashes of chaos, there's a guy on a cellphone trying to find out where 'Beth' is, and then there's a girl yelling, 'We cannot go in the middle of the city! we've got to get out of here!'

More chaos. More quick shots. I imagine this stuff will be picked apart when the trailer debuts online.

Over this is what seems to be a conversation between an Army guy and a girl.

Army dude: There's nothing we can do right now

Girl: do you know what that thing is?

Army dude: Whatever it is, it's winning.

More flashes. An argument:

Guy 1: We have no idea what's out there!

Guy 2: I don't care what's out there. Listen to me - she's dying!

Then there's footage of army guys running and shadows on a wall. Shadows of a screaming woman being attacked by a small monster (possibly two - either she's being pulled away from the monster by someone behind her or there's another monster behind her). It's confirmed: the movie has a big beast and small ones. Like the American Godzilla.

People are hiding in a store, and there are huge thumps making everything shake. The windows of the store explode in.

The big sequence is next: Army guys running up a street, firing into the air. Tanks come up behind them, firing. Rockets launch up.

We see the big monster briefly passing between two buildings. I couldn't make it out at all, but it appeared to be HUGE.

Characters race down subway steps, there's a giant explosion, the cameraman is down, there's a figure in a tunnel, people are yelling 'Run!' and running through the tunnel.

Outside of Central Park, a horse drawn carriage goes by.

Guy: Are you still filming?

Cameraman: Yeah. People are going to want to know... how it all went down.

Shot of the Brooklyn Bridge. A helicopter taking off. Some chaos. Then inside the copter girls screaming as the copter spins out of control.

Cut to black, then the title comes up: Cloverfield.

Then the text: End of tape

Then the release date: 1-18-08

So the info I gleaned from this:

The title is Cloverfield.
There are smaller monsters.
This movie will quite probably make a lot of people motion sick." (source)

New 1-18-08/Cloverfield Trailer and Title, Christmas Speed Racer Trailer

The time may be near for 1-18-08/Cloverfield to be titled and a full-length trailer released. A few major websites like /Film and Coming Soon seem to think the upcoming Beowulf movie would be a perfect time to launch the 1-18-08/Cloverfield trailer.

Sounds good to me! If you have visited this site before than you'll know I have shared that opinion, too. (See 1-18-08/Cloverfield Trailer Speculation) Plus, it's a great opportunity to post that picture of the CG-Angelina Jolie.

Also of note is the upcoming Wachowski Brothers version of Speed Racer is being touted as a technological marvel for its full-blown, full-screen camera style. A new and expensive camera was used for the Speed Racer adaptation which created the full-screen effect. That trailer should be out at Christmas time.
10/28/07

Bold Futura, A Tagruato Subsidiary, Website Up


A Bold Futura website is up and running due to someones great effort. For a few weeks the site for Bold Futura has been only a welcome/coming soon page and it was hard to tell if it was someone parking a site to get in on the action or a legit site associated with the Cloverfield/1-18-08 movie.

Well, it's still hard to tell but the Bold Futura site is online and has multiple pages to search through now. The Bold Futura site even references the Tagruato Corp. site, which is the parent company but does not offer any new information. However, the official Tagruato Corp. site does not link to this new Bold Futura site so until it does it looks like it might be someone having fun.

10/26/07

1-18-08 in France is...06-02-08


Parlez vous francais?

The international dates for Cloverfield/1-18-08 are going to be off our premier date in January. In the U.K., the trailer just indicates a release date of 2008 (see 1-18-08 U.K. trailer) while the French actually have a date established.

The boys at unFiction have found the French premier date for Cloverfield on 06-02-08 (see here). The French page is also a Flash movie and not the Quicktime that we see here. Not too surprising. If you have ever kept up with how the French Government doesn't like Apple and iTunes you'll know they are not the best of friends.
10/24/07

1-18-08/Cloverfield Trailer Speculation

Beowulf is coming to theaters on November 16th from Paramount Pictures which makes it the best candidate for having the 1-18-08/Cloverfield trailer attached. The key spot for any upcoming movie is the trailer that's attached to the movie print and shown directly in front of the main movie. Studios generally add one of their projects there.

Paramount Pictures has only one holiday movie coming out and it's huge. It's the Robert Zemeckis CG-flick, Beowulf.

Personally, I'm mixed when it comes to doing humans with CG. They're still years away from it being realistic but I really dig Zemeckis. Plus, it' has Angelina Jolie all tricked out. Zemeckis is definitely one of the more underrated directors around and I'm sure he'll handle the timeless story with class.

Beowulf is tracking extremely high right now which should give it a monster opening week when it starts November 16th. To illustrate, take a look at the comparison of how Cloverfield is tracking with its known names (Cloverfield, 1-18-08, Slusho) compared to Beowulf, which has been riding high for much longer than Cloverfield.

That big, green line is the Beowulf tracking which has benefited from a steady source of news and updates. For being dubbed a viral flick, I have to admit that the 1-18-08 movie has been relatively quiet on the Internet.

Here's the graph with I Am Legend added to it. The Will Smith flick benefited from a spike this week with a new trailer (see New I Am Legend Trailer) that a few confused people were associating with Cloverfield earlier.

The lesson learned here might be that I Am Legend was running along with Cloverfield until the new trailer popped out. Hopefully, we can see some news and interest develop with a new trailer or some viral information in the next few weeks.
10/20/07

The Cost Of Giving 1-18-08 A Name


One blog (see here) has taken a look at the ripple effect for the Cloverfield/1-18-08 marketing department that will occur when or if a movie title is announced. More preciscely, the post looks at the effect a name change will have on the Google search engines. While this is far from being a precise tool to measure a movie's marketing, it does bring up some key issues on the project.

The author seems to think that keeping with the codename 'Cloverfield' will be the best marketing decision. Keep in mind that the author is using his projected Google scenerio as his source of data. While search results are key to any website or movie, with a viral project like this the bulk of the data is being heavily driven by forums, blogs, and movie websites.

The title of the movie won't live or die by how Google Trends sees the movie. Instead, the film will fill seats by what Ain't It Cool News, Slash Film, and unFiction mention. With a timeline now of 3 months until the release, 1-18-08 has garnered enough buzz on so few facts that the first wealth of information that overwhelms the fans and bystanders alike that it will easily create enough of a factor for the Google Trends that will ride the movie into opening week.

As for keeping the term 'Cloverfield' as the movies title I personally couldn't disagree more with the Marketing author about keeping that term. If your choices are using 'Cloverfield' or the release date 1-18-08, it makes more sense to use '1-18-08' than 'Cloverfield.' The only real exception is to tie in the 'Cloverfield' term into something relevant to the movie such as the secret, underwater ingredient in Slusho is called a 'Cloverfield' because of its color. Even that is too much of a stretch for my liking. At this time I can't see how the term could fit in.

I've liked '1-18-08' as the title for awhile now for multiple reasons. Like the arguement for 'Cloverfield' the date '1-18-08' is already established. The movie is supposed to take place that night which connects the title and movie. Plus, Paramount's homepage now refers to the movie as '1-18-08.'
10/19/07

Jamie And Teddy Video 3

10/16/07

Abrams' New Captain And A Few 1-18-08 Namedrops

Chris Pine

J.J. Abrams has finally enlisted the Captain of the Enterprise.

Friends Dave and Thomas dropped me a line that relatively unknown actor Chris Pine will take the captain's chair for the much anticipated movie due out next Christmas. Pine had to drop out of his current role in White Jazz, according to director Joe Carnahan, to take the role of Kirk.

More>


Also, in Abrams-related news, Roger Michell has signed on to direct the New York comedy "Morning Glory" for Paramount.

This really isn't big news except that Bad Robot's J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk are producing. This is part of the 5-year deal Abrams has with Paramount that includes 1-18-08.

More>


One last note, 1-18-08 got a mention in viral marketing with the horror/sci-fi television series Alive which launched a gory viral-marketing campaign -- before the series pilot was even produced.

More>

10/13/07

Weekend Update: 1-18-08 Ripoff And The Slusho Site Updated

Two new buttons have been added to the Slusho homepage. The first one advertises 'Distribution Opportunities' and encourages you to join the Slusho family as they are getting ready to expand to the West.

It goes on to say that as soon as Slusho gets the FDA and other paperwork approved, representatives and scientists will be sent out to teach you how to operate and mix Slusho correctly.

Two notes of interest are that the Slusho website references the parent company, Tagruato, for the first time. Second, they refer to Slusho's secret ingredient by name as 'Seabed's Nectar.'

Here is the text from the 'distribution page':

Join the Slusho! Team soon!!! Distribution Opportunities available by contacting us through our parent, TAGRUATO! Extensive research reveals that our incredibly tasty flavor mixtures would be loved throughout the West! Become a pioneer, spread Noriko's dream and purchase a Slusho! machine for your store today! We will send representatives and scientists who will train you on how to operate our machine, and preserve the flavor of our special ingredient, Seabed's Nectar!! And what is more, we will have the special flavor tasties delivered bi-weekly, right to your storefront!!! We are highly optimistic that the FDA and other such organizations will quickly approve our ingredient for consumption in the West. They need only look to the East to see its remarkable health benefits
- it is nutritious and thrifty!

TEL +81-3-5403-6318
18KagashimaD@tagruato.jp

The second button does not link to anything yet but when you click it a text ballon comes up and states: "We are coming. We will find you soon."



Also, Film Threat points out a copycat movie studio that is cashing in on the success of 1-18-08 by producing their own version to be released on DVD the same week the official 1-18-08 movie heads to theaters. It also looks like this isn't the first time this company has done this.

More>
10/12/07

Abrams Casts Sulu and Scotty

A quick switch of gears as there is no news on the 1-18-08 front since the Tagruato (see Cloverfield Has Its Hanso) site updated last week. In J.J. Abrams-related news, Abrams is keeping busy with his latest movie and it isn't 1-18-08.

The much anticipated Star Trek movie due out late next year is produced by Abrams Bad Robot Productions as well as being directed by Abrams. Most of the creative crew of 1-18-08 will be used on the Star Trek project as well.

I'm a big fan of Abrams, as you may have guessed by now, and I'm excited to see if he can bring back the excitement to a stale Star Trek franchise. I also wonder if he will use any viral marketing like 1-18-08 for the movie or even if he will stick the trailer for Star Trek into the opening week of 1-18-08.

Abrams has made some interesting choices in casting the Star Trek crew that got a boost today when the Hollywood Reporter announced the casting of Sulu and Scotty. The biggest name up to now was the casting of Zachary Quinto (Heroes) as a young Spock.

John Cho, who played Harold in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, has been cast as Sulu, and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is set to play Scotty. Earlier this week, Eric Bana (Hulk, Munich) was cast as the villian, Nero.

Pegg has experience with Abrams already after having a small role as tech wizard Benji in Mission: Impossible III, the only other major motion picture Abrams has directed.

Cho appeared in one episode of Felicity which was directed by 1-18-18's Matt Reeves (1 of 5 he directed) and written by J.J. Abrams.

See Final frontier for Cho, Pegg>

Enough Cloverfield Already!

The following article is from Eric D. Snider of Film.com who seems to be a little jaded about the whole 'Cloverfield/1-18-08' experience:
"Producer J.J. Abrams is being cagey about his new film, opening Jan. 18. A tantalizing trailer appeared in front of Transformers and got everyone talking, everyone except J.J. himself.

In fact, here is a list of things that are still a secret about this movie:

1.) What it's about.

2.) What
it's called.

3.) Everything else.

Oh! But for fun, J.J.'s people have put secret little games on the Internet, where you can solve riddles and find tiny hints about the movie's content! And there are message boards everywhere: "Look at this clue I found!" "I heard a rumor about such-and-such!" "Here's a website for a fake corporation that figures into the plot!" The blogs re buzzing with whatever little tidbits they can find. It's like a treasure
hunt! Fun! Ha ha!

NO.

J.J., as soon as you're ready to talk about your movie, I will be glad to listen. But until then? I don't care. I'm not gonna play your stupid games. You don't want to tell me anything about it? Then I don't want to see it. You can keep trying to "hype" your film by not saying anything, but it's not going to work. The effect of you not discussing it will be me not thinking about it. "

...Continue Article> Enough loverfield Already!
10/7/07

Fox scares up J.J. Abrams' 'Fringe'

J.J. Abrams is one busy man.

His Bad Robot projects coming up for the new year include our 1-18-08 as well as the newest season of 'Lost,' a project for HBO (rumored cancer survivor story), and the new Star Trek movie.

Now add a new series for Fox that Abrams will help bring to the small screen called 'Fringe.' The two-hour pilot budgeted at over $10 million which puts it near the 'Lost' budget.

Variet explains the storyline of Fringe' as:

"...elements of "The X-Files" and Paddy Chayefsky's "Altered States" with what Abrams calls "a slight 'Twilight Zone' vibe." It will focus on brilliant but possibly crazy research scientist Walter Bishop, his estranged son and a female FBI agent who brings them together..."(source)

10/6/07

Cloverfield Is Still 1-18-08, ...For Now

Rumors have circulated that the release date of the Slusho fueled Cloverfield movie has been moved or changed. One guy even wrote me to say that the new trailer omits '1-18-08' at the end and simply says 'Coming 2008.'

My guess is that is he saw an international trailer. The official site is still going by the date '1-18-08' and the official movie trailer page on Apple not only has '1-18-08' on its page but the trailer itself still has the release date '1-18-08' on the end.

Also of note, Paramount's main page simply refers to the movie as '1-18-08' and has taken off any 'untitled' reference. With a little over 3 months to go until release, Bad Robot needs to pop out a title soon.
10/4/07

Jamie and Teddy Video 2

Cloverfield/1-18-08 viral site about Jamie and Teddy saw another video updated. This second video is another video journal from Jamie as she sends Teddy a message about nothing really interesting. You can view video 1 here and video 2 here.

The movie opens in less than 4 months so the activity on the Internet has started to increase. The creation of the Tagruato website has definitely gotten my interests up. While I have yet to see what exactly this site, or the lame MySpace accounts for that matter, have to do with the movie other than just being filler material to flush out character development for the incredibly bored, I am holding out that something interesting might come in the future. Maybe some clues will open up to use through Tagruato to find some answers.

One date of note is December 9th, which Jamie mentions as when she is allowed to open a present from Teddy.
Click on the "OLDER POSTS" above to start up the Cloverfield archives and see how it all began.

What is Cloverfield?

Welcome to 1-18-08 Project Cloverfield Blog.

Cloverfield is the J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) produced monster flick directed by Matt Reeves. Get caught up on all the Cloverfield news including the viral world of Tagruato, TIDOwave, and Slusho!? And now Aladygma?

However, I love viral campaigns. Cloverfield taught me the fun of being involved with the viral world of movies and TV. That's why I'd like to branch out this site to cover some of the major viral campaigns as they are developing. Feel free to drop me a line or tip on any you find interesting.

Welcome to Cloverfield

Very few facts emerged from the viral campaign that was Cloverfield. It all started after a short, teaser trailer for Cloverfield appeared with the Transformers movie in early July of 2007. Since then, speculation surrounded what the title of the movie would be (Monstrous, Overnight, etc...) and what the monster really is and why it is tearing up New York City.

A few pictures and covert videos from the film showed up online and there were only a few core facts we knew of including the poster, the teaser trailer, and a few websites at 1-18-08, Tagruato Corp, and Slusho .

In November, the official full-length Cloverfield trailer was released that helped open up the story as well as cement the "Cloverfield" name for the movie. A short glimpse of the Cloverfield Monster was seen but for most people they still had little or no clue as to what it was.

The movie centered around five young New Yorkers throwing their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives. Cloverfield opened the weekend of 1-18-08 and set box office records for a movie in January with a monster take of over $40M. Continue to check back here for updates on the mystery and viral campaigns of Cloverfield.

Contact Me

Dave and Thomas

Contact me

Get Started with the Cloverfield Viral Marketing

If you're new to the Cloverfield viral world than let's get started. First off, for the beginners let's look at what we're talking about.

What does viral marketing mean? Click here.

1-18-08.com Updates with pictures randomly. Each picture is layered onto of the previous update and all can be dragged and moved around the screen. Click and hold the mouse to 'grab' an image and move it around. While holding the image, shake it back and forth quickly and it will flip over. Some images have writing on the back.

Slusho This is the Japanese frozen drink made from a secret ingredient gathered from the bottom of the ocean. Slusho gives you a kick and makes you extremely happy. Prior to 1-18-08 Slusho was not sold in the US. However, recent FDA approval gave Slusho clearance to come to the states. Rob Hawkins, the lead character, was recently promoted to vice-president of Slusho and was on his way to Japan the night of the attack. Slusho is owned by the Tagruato Corp. of Japan. Slusho also first made an appearance on J.J. Abrams Alias during a scene where characters buy the drink at a store.

Tagruato This ficticious Japanese company is the parent company of Slusho as well as the Yoshida Medical Research, Bold Futura, and ParafFUN! Wax Distributors. Besides drilling the oceans for Slusho ingredients, Tagruato builds everything from space satellites to medical gear.

T.I.D.O wave An activist group set out to bring to light all the damage Tagruato has done to the envirnoment.

Jamie and Teddy A minor character from the movie, Jamie popped up on a 1-18-08.com picture and the MySpace profiles for the movies characters before getting famous for her "Jamie and Teddy" website. The site is comprised of video journals from Jamie. The site is password protected but can be accessed by the password "jllovesth"

What Is Slusho?

Slusho ! You Can't Drink 6

Cloverfield Poster

Poster Official Cloverfield Poster. The poster was officially released the week of the 2007 Comic-con in San Diego.

Project Cloverfield 1-18-08

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