Studio Solicits ‘Shooter’ Mash-Ups

Paramount Pictures is diving into consumer-generated media with a mash-up campaign that lets users create their own movie trailers for the upcoming thriller The Shooter.

The studio is providing 20 brief film clips, music and sound effects to help consumers craft their own promos. Users can embed the trailers in their MySpace profiles, blogs or Web sites and share them with friends via e-mail or mobile phone.

Amy Powell, svp, interactive marketing at Paramount, said the studio would use mash-up campaigns for other films, including Disturbia, a thriller set for release in April.

“We’re hoping Shooter‘s launching a new way for us to market our movies,” she said.

Advertisers are starting to follow the lead of consumers who increasingly use simple digital tools to create mash-ups online.

Examples abound. The NBA’s site allows fans to remix game highlights. As part of its Air Force 25 campaign, Nike provided users with scenes from a commercial shoot to create their own versions. And Sprite is wrapping up a LeBron James campaign where users mix their own “theme song” for the NBA star. It received more than 2,500 entries.

Paramount is leaning on startup firm EyeSpot to provide the video editing tools for the promotion, which will award the best trailer creator an Xbox 360 system.

The firm is hosting the contest, which is promoted on The Shooter‘s official Web site. EyeSpot is also powering the NBA’s remix site.

Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg as a former sniper framed by the government, premieres March 23. The trailer mash-up contest runs until March 26.

Jim Kaskade

Jim Kaskade is a serial entrepreneur & enterprise software executive of over 36 years. He is the CEO of Conversica, a leader in Augmented Workforce solutions that help clients attract, acquire, and grow end-customers. He most recently successfully exited a PE-backed SaaS company, Janrain, in the digital identity security space. Prior to identity, he led a digital application business of over 7,000 people ($1B). Prior to that he led a big data & analytics business of over 1,000 ($250M). He was the CEO of a Big Data Cloud company ($50M); was an EIR at PARC (the Bell Labs of Silicon Valley) which resulted in a spinout of an AML AI company; led two separate private cloud software startups; founded of one of the most advanced digital video SaaS companies delivering online and wireless solutions to over 10,000 enterprises; and was involved with three semiconductor startups (two of which he founded, one of which he sold). He started his career engineering massively parallel processing datacenter applications. Jim has an Electrical and Computer Science Engineering degree from University of California, Santa Barbara, with an emphasis in semiconductor design and computer science; and an MBA from the University of San Diego with an emphasis in entrepreneurship and finance.