CASE STUDY · KN Studio
How a Student Film Festival Sold 600+ Carloads in a Pandemic
Reel Loud is a film and arts festival. For its 30th year in 2021, a normal festival night was off the table, so it moved to the West Wind Drive-In in Goleta. I helped shape the theme, then carried it through the website, social, and video ad.
Client
Reel Loud Film & Arts Festival
Role
Brand, web, social, and video
Timeline
Oct 2020 to Oct 2021.
Festival night: May 27, 2021
Team
Festival staff, led by director Jeff Peepgrass
THE CHALLENGE
No Theater. A New Format. No Web Designer.
Going into 2021, the festival couldn't count on a crowd in one room. The team planned a prerecorded show for the website and a screening at the drive-in, and needed people to buy into a format the festival had never tried.
No venue
A packed room was off the table during COVID.
New format
Audiences had never watched Reel Loud from their cars.
No web designer
The site's designer left partway through planning.
30th year
The anniversary edition still had to feel like an event.
MY APPROACH
Set the Theme.
Carry It Everywhere.
1. Theme
I helped the festival team develop the year's theme, Reimagine Connection, then built the look around it for the website, social, and print.
2. Website
I joined to run social. When the web designer left mid-planning, I took over the site and rebuilt it in Wix around one job: selling drive-in tickets.
3. Social
I ran the festival's social with templates in the new look, so every post matched, and filled the feed with user-generated content and festival stories.
4. Video ad
I edited the festival's video ad, so the drive-in night had the same Reimagine Connection look in motion that it had on the website and in every post.
5. Events
I helped plan and run community mural and park painting events in Isla Vista, so people met the festival in person before they bought a ticket.
IMPACT & RESULTS
What Happened
These were festival results. My part was the theme, website, social, and video ad.
+82%
Website traffic
600+
Drive-in tickets.
A festival record.
3x
Social following
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"Kalle helped our team with the brainstorming and designing of our annual theme, implemented this theme into our digital promotion campaign, and assisted in the management and planning of festival awareness events."
Jeff Peepgrass
Director, Reel Loud