The Alchemist Cookbook Cooks Up a New Trailer and Release Strategy
Debi Moore
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To celebrate the debut of a brand new trailer for The Alchemist Cookbook, an announcement has come that the film will be released via BitTorrent Now on a pay-what-you-wish basis beginning October 7th.
Directed by American indie auteur Joel Potrykus (Ape, Buzzard — both also on BitTorrent), The Alchemist Cookbook (review) is a portrait of a young hermit out to solve an old mystery, who loses his mind along the way. The film, which stars Ty Hickson and Amari Cheatom, premiered at SXSW and has played many other festivals earlier this year, including BAMcinemaFest and Fantasia.
Potrykus explains his strategy for the release in a blog post, the highlights of which you’ll find below:
I started shooting bands in high school and making little movies with my brother. It was always about the music first. Ideas came from songs. I wanted filmmaking to feel like being in a punk band. But it never quite made sense. Directors don’t spit on gaffers or trash the set during a take…
So, for now, the best I can come up with is giving the middle finger to the big guys in the industry. Radiohead and Girl Talk were early to the game, releasing albums online without a price, asking you to pay what you want. They never quite came out and said, “Steal this album,” but you could if you wanted. And I’m not going to say that either. People swipe my movies off the internet enough as is…
We’ll see how this goes. This experiment may fail. Maybe only ten people will download it, and only two of them pay. But I figure if I’m taking creative risks in my storytelling and actively trying to challenge the audience, I may as well take some risks and challenge the traditions in distribution. It’s 2016, after all. Time to get futuristic for once. Pay us what you want. That’s all.
Synopsis:
Young outcast Sean has isolated himself in a trailer in the woods, setting out on alchemic pursuits, with his cat, Kaspar, as his sole companion. Filled with disdain for authority, he’s fled the daily grind and holed up in the wilderness, escaping a society that has no place for him. But when he turns from chemistry to black magic to crack nature’s secret, things go awry; and he awakens something far more sinister and dangerous.
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