Four Eyed Monsters For Free (but you should really pay for it)

One of the best, most original uses of a webisodic for marketing has to be Susan Buice and Arian Crumley, the creators behind Four Eyed Monsters. In a style uniquely their own, they created a movie to retell the story of falling in love with each other without words. But while doing so they also opted to make a webisode chronicling the creation of the movie.

Quickly the webisodic shot to the top of iTunes but their film, sadly, was not as successful. Failing to get into Sun Dance and failure get a distributor in many ways tanked the main stream possibilities of success for the film. But with a cult following of hundreds of thousands because of the webisodic, they've since opted for self distribution.

During the past week they've been offering the full 70 minute film for free on YouTube, where its been watched more than a quarter million times. They are also offering the film, starting at only three dollars, via their Web site.

In a strange arrangement, to say the least, the movie review, social networking start up Sprout.com sponsored the YouTube appearance by paying the monsters a dollar (to help repay the debt from the films production) for everyone who signed up for Sprout as a response to a short plea at the beginning of the film.

When I signed up, on the second to the last day of the film's seven day run on YouTube only about 20,000 people had signed up, far short of the sated goal of 100,000 the approximate amount needed to cover the about of debt the couple cites as having amassed. It appears web celebrity has still yet to come with wealth.

Take a look at their webisodic, it defiantly ranks as one of the top ten defining series of the genre. Episode three is my favorte and it doesn't just have to do with my unexplicible large attraction to Moulin Rouge. If you have a chance also sign up for Spout at www.spout.com/foureyedmonsters. It helps two struggling artists and it's actually a pretty good site.

If you haven't seen the film and missed the YouTube viewing, you can download the film from their site here.