WHAT HAPPENED IN FRAZIER PARK? A New Age of Independent Film Marketing with Tyler Schnabel and Sam Hanover
What do you get when you take two young filmmakers, a time crunch, a few glasses of wine, and a fresh take on social media marketing? The answer is a plethora of curious fans and a movie that’s bound to spark some attention.
Tyler Schnabel and Sam Hanover are the two masterminds behind FRAZIER PARK RECUT. You may recognize Tyler from his work on Teen Wolf, and the raunchy podcast he co-hosts with Tyler Posey called Doin’ it Raw; Sam and Tyler have been working together for a while producing a multitude of short videos on Tyler’s YouTube channel NANOshorts. The duo always had a goal to make a feature film together but life (projects, work, etc.) always seemed to get in the way. With news of Sam moving from LA to Indianapolis, the motivation to make a movie was more evident than ever. With time and a move on their heels, FRAZIER PARK RECUT was born. I had the pleasure of speaking with both Tyler and Sam and they were able to give me a few details about the upcoming film.
FRAZIER PARK RECUT is essentially a documentary about Sam and Tyler going out into the woods to make a feature film. Can you say, Meta? While they’re out there, things go awry, leaving fans to wonder what happened.
Neither Tyler nor Sam were keen on giving up too much information about what actually unfolds, which gives the film an even more eerie vibe.
Essentially we want our audience to go to the movie expecting to see a documentary about two friends making a movie, and they get sent on an adventure where things just aren’t what they seem to be. We want people to leave the theater going ‘what did I just watch, what really happened? I can’t exactly disclose what happened in Frazier Park, but you’re sure to find out after seeing the film
– Tyler
Coming from someone who’s favorite film is Inception, another project based on a movie within a movie is, of course, fascinating to me.
What transpires throughout the film is the line between reality and fiction becomes a little blurred. The behind the scenes documentation is actually the main story, not the film that we are making. Yes we know, extremely meta! (laughs). But it all makes sense as you watch it scene by scene. Afterwards, the audience is left to decide for themselves what is real and what is fiction.
-Sam
If the premise itself doesn’t grab your attention, just listen to the way social media has tied into it. In today’s day and age, it’s obvious the huge impact social media has on audiences. Taking this into mind, Tyler and Sam chose Snapchat as their main marketing tool.
Snapchat provides a completely new method for promoting a film. When you follow someone on Snapchat you are taking a look into their daily personal life. When someone watches our behind the scenes Snapchat stories it provides them with a more personal look into the making of our film, as if we are their friends and we’re keeping them personally updated. Tyler amassed a pretty big following over the years through his involvement with social media, so the amount of people following our Snapchat stories even impressed me. Tyler gets all the credit for that!
-Sam
So how exactly did they incorporate the two together? Tyler explained it to me;
We had this idea to do a long Snapchat story. Like daily Snapchat stories about us getting ready to shoot and then going out to Frazier Park for production. We did a Snapchat take-over for a new company called GhostCodes, which features new Snapchat artists daily on their account. We pulled in nearly 10,000 viewers the day of our take-over! Afterwards, we just kept snapping, and then we thought it would be interesting if we just fell off the map. That’s what we did and it raised a lot of questions!
-Tyler
I saw this firsthand myself. Fans were concerned about what was going on and started tweeting to find answers, causing the hashtag #WhatHappenedInFrazierPark to rise in popularity.
Some even took to reaching out to Tyler Posey.
One of the characters from the film ended up taking over Tyler’s Snapchat and took matters into his own hands. The line between reality and film vanished, and no one seemed to know what was real anymore. Some fans tried reaching out to the Frazier Park police! This created a pretty big buzz around the film, drawing fans in to submit Snapchats of themselves getting involved.
This is the first and only time I’ve seen Snapchat utilized this way. I find it to be genius and innovative. The boys plan on hitting the independent festival circuit once FRAZIER PARK RECUT is complete, which should be soon. I look forward to seeing the complete film. You can explore a little more about the film, and its easter eggs on FRAZIER PARK RECUT‘s website.
Make sure to follow Tyler on Twitter
And Snapchat: 