Whether or not Christian Bales' recent rant captured in audio form and posted on youtube (warning: this audio contains about 1,000 occurances of the f-bomb) was authentic or staged the fact still remains that, as reported by Adam Ostrow on Mashable.com, the video..errrr...audio caused a great deal of buzz in social media circles and especially amongst the twitterati.
What this also means is we can fully expect similar "leaks" from hollywood sets to hit YouTube soon as production companies, already struggling to keep budgets under control and cutting back on marketing spend, try to generate early buzz for their movies through social media.
In the past movies like Cloverfield used online buzz to generate box office sales. However, the tactics used were a combination of virtual reality gaming, online ads and social media pr. This may be the first case of an unauthorized leak of on-the-set goings ons that resulted in a nice traffic boost for the upcoming Transformers movie.
So for those movie marketers considering not so "accidental" viral tirades at an attempt to boost buzz, beware: the line between cool viral video and really pathetic attempts to con people is a fine one indeed. Don't forget that social media is rooted in authenticity. "Fool me once..." well you know the rest.
