Entertainment Publicists Told to 'Go Out Of The Box' to Get Noticed When Promoting TV Shows and Movies
A panel of entertainment studio and film publicists nominated for awards share inside secrets to making challenging films blockbuster.
(PRWEB) February 24, 2006 -- About 75 PR Pros packed into the Lowes Hotel in Santa Monica, CA, recently (2-16-2006) to hear successful case studies of top rated TV Shows and Films such as 20th Century Fox’s “I Walk The Line”; Disney’s animated movie “NARNIA”; Warner Bros, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory” and the Warner Bros highly rated Television’s series “Without A Trace.” All are International Cinematographers Guild Publicists Showmanship Award nominees.
“We wanted to market it as the holiday film to see, and we took on the challenge of tackling several angles,” said Senior Publicist Dora Candelaria, Buena Vista Pictures, a Walt Disney company. “Beyond that we also needed to lay the ground work to make it part of the franchise for the studio. This film touched every part of our company from parks to products, video games and music. The launching pad for that was the film.”
There were many challenges, but the main challenge said Candelaria was there were no stars in the film. “We didn’t have anyone who was going to bring in the dollars. We were coming from a series that was beloved, but it was also dated. We found that many adults had read the film as children, and children had read the film. Book companies were re-launching programs to get their word out there. And we also up against the fact that the press only wanted to talk about the Christian angle and whether we were only going to market to the Christian audience. That took up a lot of our effort at first, because that was the only thing that was being written initially.”
“We started talking about this film even before it went into production,” noted Candelaria. “As soon as the film was green lit, everyone started meeting on how to market this film, utilize the angles that would work for publicity, and talk about the struggles that we would have. With the Christian angle we knew it would benefit us, but we didn’t want to make it for one audience. It was also for the fantasy people, their families and the general audience. With the Christian angle we worked with a Christian PR company, but we also had a buzz team that work with our sci-fi fantasy people. We had an extensive only campaign at multiple websites doing campaigns along with Hispanic marketing and literary and music program to go out to everyone who would possible view this film. Timing wise, we also up against another tiny film coming out a few days after us called ‘King Kong,’ so we really had to compete for space around the other films that season.”
“We wanted people to discover this film (“I Walk the Line”- the story of Johnny Cash),” explained April Florentine, publicist, 20th Century Fox. “We had screenings in every country western market, but we did not want to alienate everyone else so we worked a host of groups in each market.”
Florentine, who has been doing publicity for more than six years said that she notice that when she started you could just a do a regular publicity campaign. “Today there are so many groupies and so many good campaigns; you have to really stand out. One event we just did is we took movie star Joaquin Phoenix back to Folsom Prison for a screening.
It was challenging, because people said ‘why are you rewarding prisoners?’ It wasn’t about rewarding, it was about redemption. It was more about what Johnny Cash did years ago. A Christian group wanted to show an enlightening film to the inmates. It was tough to get talent to participate, but it was an amazing. Amazing publicity event, and it go so much coverage, because it was a human interest story,” said Florentine.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie is based on the classic book by Roald Dahl.
“One of our biggest challenges was to separate this film from the original 1971 Gene Wilder movie title Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Senior Publicist Jeff Hare told the EPPS crowd. “The original music version was a beloved classic and adored by many. Getting the press and audiences to realize that this film is not a remake, but a faithful adaptation of the classic book was vital to the position of the film.”
Hare said one of his biggest accomplishments one week for the film was getting National Chocolate Day declared on July 7th, one week for the film debut.
Actor Johnny Depp was filming Pirates of the Caribbean sequel in the Bahamas and was unavailable to us for a typical publicity campaign. Therefore we had to creatively secure as much publicity as possible without the use of our lead talent,” said Hare. “The rest of the cast was full of unknowns and children which gave us a different set of obstacles. British Children’s Labor Law dictates that we could use the actors for only a limited amount of time per day, leaving us with little opportunity to fully utilize our “Charlie” played by Freddie Highmore. Time Burton was working full-time on Corpse Bridge at the same time as making Charlie which limited his availability to complete publicity efforts, too.”
Hare said his biggest challenges was flying to the Bahamas for the junket, flying the press down and having interviews at a hotel that never did before, not to mention worrying about hurricanes.
“This our fourth successful season of “Without A Trace,” said Publicity Manager Rayna Schwartz, Warner Bros. Television Production, Inc. “We had to reinvent the wheel every year and go beyond the main stars that were on the show.”
Schwartz also said her publicity team had to overcome the label of ‘just another crime sequel show,” and the challenge of a premiering their series against the ER TV show. “Once we were on the air and doing well, we spent less money on billboards and solely relied on PR. We did not have blockbuster stars.
"We focused on a stunt in the show where they had to blowup something or they had a shootout. We also promoted what’s going to happen in the upcoming episodes. Since we premiered in September, we would start promoting it in July. We also did TV show Spa’s which helped the show," she said. She also said each actor had its own publicist that she had to work closely with, while be aware that they were pushing their actors, more than the TV show.
George McQuade is West Coast Correspondet for O'Dwyer Publications in Manhattan, NY, contributes to Bacon's "Navigator" Newsletter and Entertainment Publicists Professional Society monthly "Connections" and posts entertainment publicity and PR tips to successful campaigns
at www.MayoPR.com.
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