QR Codes Star in Tribeca Film Festival
Filmmakers try new medium: QR CODES.
Art, fundamentally, is about communication. The written word, painting, film—whatever the medium, the intent is to reach another human being. Remove the audience, you remove the impact. If you accept this postulate, then it stands to reason that the bigger the audience, the greater the impact. This year, the Tribeca Film Festival hopes to increase its impact with QR codes.
The Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Center. This annual celebration of film, music and culture has had significant impact on the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district.
The Festival’s mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. This year the festival turns to QR codes to help further this goal.
The 2D codes, provided by Scanbuy, one of the leaders in mobile barcode technology, can be found throughout the event on items such as guides, posters, and other festival collateral The Qr codes offer the filmmakers a way to reach more individual consumers and give busy festival participants access to relevant content while on-the-go.
Feature and short filmmakers in the festival were sent Scanlife generated QR codes for use in their print ads and other promotional materials. By using the codes, the filmmaker is able to provide festival attendees with mobile access to movie trailers, special videos— any content that they feel will make an impact.
Users can scan the codes with the ScanLife application, other industry standard 2D scanner apps, or by using Scanbuy’s Scan and Send function, where the codes can be snapped with a camera phone and sent by MMS to 43588.
“We’re honored to power the QR codes for a prestigious film festival like Tribeca,” said Mike Wehrs, CEO and President of Scanbuy. “The codes give filmmakers a chance to reach attendees in a truly interactive and engaging way by giving them immediate access to unique content when they really want it. We’ve had notable success at other major events leveraging mobile barcodes this year, such as the New York Auto Show and SXSW, and with the 1600% increase in traffic in 2010 and a continuing impressive growth in the first quarter of 2011, mobile barcodes are fast becoming a must-have feature at major industry events.”
The QR code, like the film, is merely the conduit between speaker and listener. It is the responsibility of the creator to communicate his message clearly through content. It is the content that either will or will not resonate with the audience, not the delivery method.
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