FrackNation has yet to make its nationwide debut on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV, but it’s already a model of New Media success.
The documentary, which takes a positive look at how the process of fracking can be of enormous benefit to worldwide energy supplies, lacks the star power and financial might of the recent anti-fracking film Promised Land.
Who needs Promised Land’s Matt Damon or the millions in marketing muscle behind that project when you’ve got crowdfunding support and some killer viral videos?
FrackNation, like many independent films of late, went the Kickstarter route to help bring its story to the masses. The response was electric, with the site generating more than $22,000 in just two days en route to one of the more successful crowdsourcing runs in the site’s history.
The movie’s pre-release good fortune continued with a pair of can’t miss videos that caught fire. The first featured co-director Phelim McAleer throwing tough but fair questions at Josh Fox, the director of the anti-fracking documentary Gasland about how even water not associated with the fracking process can burst into flames thanks to the presence of methane gas.
When Fox tried to get the exchange expunged from YouTube it only increased the clip’s appeal.
The second found McAleer at it again, asking Damon why his film was partially funded by oil interests, the kind who will greatly benefit should fracking be abolished in the U.S. The latter clip drew nearly 45,000 views, not bad for a brief exchange on behalf of a micro-indie project.
The FrackNation team released a new video targeting Gasland’s Fox, a weapon not in the documentary filmmaker’s arsenal years ago, before the idea of New Media even existed.
FrackNation debuts on AXS TV at 9 p.m. Jan. 22.
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