I've had an interesting few days running a fan campaign to get a film score released
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So you know the Ghost in the Shell movie that came out a few weeks ago (and was controversial online for its casting)? Well I liked it and so I kept tabs on related news.
So I found out that the album of the musical background score was suddenly cancelled. Someone involved with the project hinted that if there is enough demand on social media there may be a release. And since people were disappointed I quickly figured, what if we organize a petition?
So I made this on Change.org:
Release the Ghost in the Shell (2017) soundtrack #GITSost.
So far it's at 400 signatures in 5 days. That doesn't sound like a lot, but from my experience, getting people on the internet to check out a link and fill out a form is like pulling teeth! So I'm pleased to see the signatures and comments rolling in every day.
I started out by posting the petition on various places on Reddit (sometimes I sneakily posted a Youtube video of a sample track to the subreddit, and then commented on the thread about the petition. In fact, in a subreddit dedicated to Scarlett Johansson pics, I posted a still of her face from the movie and then posted a comment about the petition, haha.)
I also replied to everyone talking about the score on Twitter with a link to the petition. That was a bit spammy but you gotta do what you gotta do.
I also signed up on a couple forums that were discussing the movie and posted about the situation with the soundtrack and our campaign there. And found a Facebook group about GITS and posted the info there. And posted the link in Youtube comments in videos related to the score from this movie.
I then started a Twitter account dedicated to this campaign (
@gitsost), which is working out great and is something I should have done earlier. I retweeted people talking about the score or petition and got a couple dozen highly-engaged followers already. Including a celebrity: Ronan Farrow.
So the campaign is chugging along but of course the real question is how to get closer to the goal. I emailed the label that was going to release the album asking for comment, let's see if they get back to us. (Here's the
text of the email.)
I'm also thinking of writing a Medium post describing the campaign and then maybe pitching bloggers on the story. Also thinking about other ways to escalate this campaign... if I was in the States I'd organize a physical protest outside Paramount offices, lol. The People want the music!!
Here's a sample track, the composers are Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSN8ndwJPVo.