Coming to Fantastic Fest 2008... Ads!

Hello, everyone, I'm Matthew Kiernan, sponsorship coordinator for Fantastic Fest and a new member to the Fantastic Fest team, although some of you may remember me from my triumphant appearance at last year's Fantastic Feud. Yes, I'm the guy who remembered all those sequel directors. In fact, that's why they hired me!

My responsibility is to find sponsors who will help fund this fine little film festival of ours; companies whose financial support allows us to bring in as many guests and films from all over the world as we possibly can. If you check out the sponsorship page on this here website, you'll see that we've got a lot of great sponsors - from such local pals as AMD, Gamecock, and the Embassy Suites downtown - along with such corporate juggernauts as Foster's, Fox Home Entertainment and DVD Empire. You'll see their ads in our mammoth 2008 program guide around town, in addition to their banners, posters and standees in the theater lobby during the festival. And there's no pussyfooting around this part, folks - you're going to see some of their ads on the big screen, too.

Up until now, the only type of ads you've ever seen on the Alamo screen have either been vintage spots or those marvelous monthly reels that Henri Mazza puts together. Now just so you know, there's not going to be any change to this - we're only talking about Fantastic Fest. However, the festival has a certain price tag that goes with it and you have to offer sponsors an incentive beyond just being part of the greatest film festival known to man. The idea that over 12,000 festival goers will see their products advertised over the course of a week helps to make the decision a bit easier for our sponsors. There will only be about 2 minutes of spots in front of each feature and, rest assured, you won't be seeing the same ads again and again. But they will be there, and since we understand that it might not be a popular addition to the festival we wanted you to know about it in advance. If it's any consolation, some of them feature real-life porn stars!

If you're peeved about all this, I'm the person to complain to. Take a number.