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'Stomp the Yard," the made-in-Atlanta, black-fraternity steppin' movie, opens in theaters nationwide on Friday. But its mini-debut, alerting hundreds of thousands of movie- and music-obsessed youth to the coming film, was some time ago.

On Dec. 12, a marketing staffer from the film's distributor, Screen Gems, struck the proper computer keystrokes in Los Angeles to post the 1-minute, 45-second video "Stomp the Yard Dance Montage," a collection of scenes from the film, on the popular Web site YouTube.com.

ALFEO DIXON (ENLARGE)
Atlanta-based "Stomp the Yard" stars Columbus Short and Grammy nominees Ne-Yo and Chris Brown. It opens nationwide Friday.
JOEY IVANSCO/Staff (ENLARGE)
Rob Hardy (left) and William Packer realized the key to marketing to the youth culture was to use podcasts and sites like YouTube and MySpace.
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In three days, the fast-cut splash of gyrating dancers and quick-step throwdowns set to blasting music from the film had scored 235,755 views. To date, the posting has attracted nearly half a million views.

Like much of pop culture these days, "Stomp the Yard" is utilizing podcasts, online contests, MySpace.com postings and more, pushing its marketing campaign beyond traditional TV, radio and print advertising.

"We've gone back to our roots a little bit," says "Stomp the Yard" producer Rob Hardy, who in the 1990s began making movies with his producing partner Will Packer out of their Marietta-based Rainforest Films.

Seven years ago, Hardy and Packer were among the first filmmakers to use the Web as a means to sell an indie film. In that case, it was "Trois," a low-budget drama that Hollywood distribution experts told the pair would never make it to the big screen.

Hardy and Packer set about distributing and marketing "Trois" themselves, sending out e-mail bursts and creating online adult discussion boards. Ultimately, their little film earned $1.2 million at the box office. They also were ranked No. 34 on the Hollywood Reporter's list of top 500 film distributors of 2000.

Rated PG-13 and budgeted at $14 million, "Stomp the Yard" was filmed in metro Atlanta last summer at Stone Mountain, the Atlanta University Center and other locations. Its storyline is set at fictional Truth University in Atlanta. Featuring a young cast that includes Grammy nominees Chris Brown and Ne-Yo and a host of college-aged extras from AUC, the film is fashioned for teen and young-adult moviegoers.

"If you have something aimed at youth culture, you have to design your marketing around the Web," Packer says. "It is no mistake that a dance movie like Disney's 'Step Up' had montages 'leaked' to the Internet. That's where the youth culture is. They're online. So we developed this project into a complete online marketing machine."

In addition to the montage and other postings on YouTube, "Stomp" has a MySpace page with a photo gallery, online game, film clips and sound bites from the film's 14 songs. The tunes include contributions from Ghostface Killah, Bonecrusher, Public Enemy and R.E.D. 44, which won a film-sponsored MySpace song contest that generated more than 1 million online votes. The latter group's tune — "Bounce Wit Me" — is used in the film.

Most of the cast — including Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Brian J. White, Brown and Ne-Yo — have MySpace pages, too, all tied to "Stomp."

Short, for example, has a listing on his MySpace page of 2,360 online "friends," many of whom post messages (often grammatically incorrect, minus capital letters and with improper punctuation) about the upcoming film, signed with their online names.

From Saturday: "only 5 more days and I can't wait, it gonna be great lol." — Suga'

From Sunday: "hey columbus! i can't wait to see ya movie." — Cierra PrettierthantheSinger.

The film's podcasts involved information about the history of stepping, the fraternity dance ritual in which teams move in unison with hops, leg lifts, body slaps and more.

"That was excellent because very rarely in Hollywood do you have a film in this genre that's based on something with a 100-year history," Packer says. "Youth films are usually about aliens or some writer's fanciful imagination, and this is based on something very real. This was a positive way we could get more information out there about black fraternities and sororities."

Hardy says the difference between traditional marketing and online marketing is that online starts much earlier.

"You do things in phases with your longer lead stuff designed to build a general underground awareness," he says.

The biggest promotional pieces — like the YouTube "Stomp" dance montage — are done a few weeks before release.

Whether all the Internet activity translates into ticket sales remains to be seen. But Packer is decidedly upbeat.

"We've seen," he says, "a huge uptick in our Internet traffic in the last week and a half."

The Rainforest File

Will Packer, 32, and Rob Hardy, 34, became friends while both attended Florida A&M University. In 1994 they formed Rainforest Films, with Packer serving as producer on projects and Hardy serving as writer/director. They later established the company's home base in Marietta.

Among their films made at Florida A&M in Tallahassee: "Chocolate City" (1994).

Among films made in Atlanta: "Trois" (2000); "Pandora's Box" (2002); "Motives" (2004) with Vivica A. Foxx and Shemar Moore; "The Gospel" (2005) with Boris Kodjoe; and "Stomp the Yard" (debuting Friday) with Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo.

The filmmaking philosophy: From Packer — "I want Hollywood to see me as a producer who lives and works in Atlanta."

From Hardy — "We really love Atlanta and this market. What we want to do is do as much stuff as we can here. It's great to be able to work where you live. And there are some great crews here."

Do they ever fight? "We've wrestled and stuff," Packer jokes. "We've had arguments and yelled," Hardy admits. "But we have a common goal. We don't want to be each other. We are two guys who know when to be lead banana and when to be No. 1 soldier."

The view from outside: "They are two of the nicest guys in the business, doing it in a way to hold on to their integrity," says actor Clifton Powell, who co-starred in "The Gospel." "And they're bringing Hollywood to the South. This city that is a melting pot of diversity and the seat of the civil rights movement. To see that kind of energy coming to Atlanta is wonderful."

On the Web: www.rainforestfilms.com

— Bob Longino