The article ran as a full page on the Entertainment section and you can explore two versions online in both the Technology and Entertainment sections. The print edition includes a screenshot of the Behind the Scenes vidcast show with Shaun and Eric, while the online version features a video with Director of Fan Communities Dave Olson giving a tour of MovieSet.com (including Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus).

The article kicks off by asking: Care to wander onto the set of a movie shoot, chat with the actors, see the inside story on the stunts?

Well, do you?

This kind of set access has been the goal of MovieSet CEO Colleen Nystedt since 2005 and she continues to educate and push her industry forward with the belief that there is a universal interest in how movies are made and that the action on-set is something fans care about. MovieSet seeks to satisfy that hunger by delivering value to both the film industry, with the suite of production tools, and to all passionate movie fans, by providing exclusive access to great content.

Here’s a snippet from the article to explain:

The site flips traditional movie marketing on its head, much the way online music has transformed the relationship between music makers and their fans. Like many traditional content-oriented industries, movie making has been more about closely guarding the content and releasing it on a prescribed schedule than in sharing it and offering inside sneak peeks.

“It is part of the Hollywood thing that they think they don’t need to communicate with fans,” said Nystedt. “To hold things back is very old school thinking.

“On the web, exclusivity is dead. If you hold back stuff it is either going to get stolen or it is going to get ignored.”

The article quotes the erstwhile leader of the “social media renegades,” Dave Olson, who relates the focus on fan participation as the key to traffic growth and enthusiasm for the site, using our recent Death Warrior campaign as an example (links added):

For small very specialized films, such as Death Warrior, a mixed martial arts film that included livestream video among its offerings for fans, Movieset allowed it to find a core audience that shared a passion for the action film.

“We found out where fans of that genre hang out, we communicated with them in their language and we invited them to take part,” said Olson. “We even gave away the bloody sweatshirt that Georges St-Pierre was killed in to a fan at the end of it.”

Finally, Ms. Shaw’s article outlines some of the other tactics we’ve used to bring movie fans behind the scenes and a call to action for movie makers of all kinds ~ from indies to majors ~ to hop aboard the MovieSet cluetrain:

“The site’s front page is refreshed daily and we’re outreaching to fans through Twitter, a Facebook trivia application and a behind-the-scenes vid cast,” said Olson.

While it still goes against the grain to loosen their grip on content, traditional studios are stepping aboard.

“Studios one by one are starting to realize there is some value here,” said Olson. “They see it is a conversation that is going on and it will go on without them.

“They are saying ‘we should start to participate whether we want to or not.’”

Dave Olson gives a tour of MovieSet.com

Indeed, there are now excellent examples which demonstrate the power of MovieSet’s two-headed monster. Cast and Crew members are employing our tools to streamline their daily workflow, they deliver content directly to their movies page including still photos, videos, news, or blog posts.

Once uploaded, the rich content gives the social media conversationalists an opportunity to reach out to an engaged community of fans interested in the film. Fans then become active contributors by following, supporting and commenting throughout each phase of production. And so on, and so on …

Read the full article: Online and on the set by Gillian Shaw (@gillianshaw on Twitter) in the Vancouver Sun, June 9, 2009 – please consider leaving a comment or sharing with your movie fan and filmmaker friends.