The Toronto Silent Film Festival has found a novel, tech-savvy way to market the old-timey medium: It ha turned its Instagram feed into a multimedia timeline about the history of silent film.
The festival accomplished this by somewhat literally turning Instagram on its ear. Instagram is designed for vertical scrolling. Users typically view Intsgram photos and videos by swiping up and down on their phones. So in order to mimic the feel of a timeline, the Toronto Film Festival, TSFF2014 on Instagram, rotated all of its images and videos 90 degrees clockwise and instructed visitors to turn their phones sideways and scroll horizontally. The project was completed last week and attracted more than 1,500 followers as of Monday afternoon.
It’s an inventive use of Instagram, especially considering the film festival’s website is relatively crude. The festival kicks off on Apr. 3 with a showing of “The Wind” (1928).
Videos of silent film legend Charlie Chaplin are sprinkled throughout the timeline. While there’s no need for headphones when viewing the timeline on Instagram’s mobile app, the video below does include sound.
More in Media
Digiday+ Research Deep Dive: Instagram loses value in the eyes of publishers
Meta’s big two social media platforms have seen better days with publishers — their usage and ad spend on Facebook continues to fall and, after trending upward through last year, publishers are even pulling back from Instagram, it seems.
Breaking point or breakup? Why publishers fear a Google ad breakup could backfire
For publishers, the stakes are high — this hits close to home.
The art of negotiating AI deals, according to Time COO Mark Howard
Time’s chief operating officer took the stage at the Digiday Publishing Summit to share how he evaluates deals with AI companies.