I am really pleased with all the activity on my last post. The idea of mixing and matching two or more different movie concepts makes for some really interesting — and sometimes hilarious — combinations. These are thought starters, as one post said “a way to limber up the brain” and that’s exactly right. But at some point one of these combinations will lead to something even better: a workable plot. And I see the start of a couple.
Well, here’s another little exercise and one that is equally fun:
We see the use of brands in movies now as starting points for plot. Last weekend’s Talladega Nights starring Will Ferrell used not only the NASCAR brand (with its built-in 70 million fans) as a starting point, but also Wonder Bread, which the irrepressible Ricky Bobby is sponsored by in that story.
Coming up is Invincible, starring Mark Wahlberg, which is sanctioned by and set against the NFL and premieres just before football season.
Add to this the use of Federal Express in the Tom Hanks’ film Castaway and the teen fleece Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and you have a verifiable trend. In the search for any recognizable brand, movie studios have turned to corporate sponsors who, I’m guessing, help share the cost of production too. But the real reason is: Brand is something we know as an audience and respond to immediately.
So… how about you? Any ideas for stories set against a corporate logo? Surely, given the creative bent of this board, we can come up with some really amazing takes on this exercise.
P.S. I will be coming to NYC this weekend to give a lecture and seminar. The response has been amazing — over 50 rsvps for my talk Thursday night, and a packed house Saturday and Sunday too. Thank you in advance New York City! See you this weekend.
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I wrote an outline for a comedy a few years ago called “The Problem with Peaches” – alternative title could be “Waiting at Waffle House.” It’s about a Waffle House waistress who tries to make a career leap when the apartment building she’s living in turns condo (it’s like the 5th time that’s happened to her) and she wants to buy it. Her new career? Selling “Daisy May” (aka Mary Kay) cosmetics. Hilarity ensues. Set in Atlanta, GA. Lots of “peach” jokes. Her name is Peaches, her dog is Cream. Etc.
But right now, I’m thick in the middle of Starter Marriage, so that one will have to uh…wait.
It might be useful to think of this in terms of what Terry Rossio in (an old post at wordplayer.com) referred to as mental real estate when he noted that he and Ted Elliott had an idea for a pirate movie and wanted to tie it to something already in people’s heads. The only options they could come up with were the Disney ride and the pirate Blackbeard (and perhaps Monkey Island).
So it seems to me that, while to a studio lawyer this is all about brand names and money, to a writer it is mostly about something already there in people’s heads. Mental real estate on which we can build.
Does any of that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense. We think visually. Even if we think about music, which is not a visual art, we “see” things – notes, instruments, musicians, or whatever ambient visuals the music conjures up. We can’t *not* think visually. Even if you think about a word that does not have an image associated with it, i.e., “the”, you still see the word written out in your head. Try it. I dare you to think something without any image at all associated with it. If you can do it, then stop reading, because maybe I’m just stoned.
I think this is a great way to guarantee yourself a big opening weekend. Like with “Talledega Nights”, 70 million fans of NASCAR are going to say “COOL! A movie about us! Let’s go!” without even knowing what the film is about. (Aside from it being about NASCAR, of course.) Caution: Big opener ahead.
Taking that idea one further, I think you could probably use any location that is readily identifiable with a large group, i.e., NASCAR fans, and combine it with “Nights” and have possible premise -“Sturgis Nights” – An undercover cop attends the biggest Biker Rally of the year to break up a Hell’s Angels cocaine ring. “Fire Island Nights” – A tough-as-nails NYPD detective is paired up with a very gay FBI agent from San Francisco and they go undercover to break up a Chippendale’s cocaine ring. “PyongYang Nights” – Mental Titan, Artist, and Philantrhopist Kim Jong Il goes undercover to break up a subversive American plot to overthrow his peaceful government…and cocaine ring. Ok, you get the idea.
My two cents. (which, due to inflation, is now only worth .46 cents.)
Cheers,
Joe
It doesn’t bother me if it’s effectively integrated into the plot. For example, in Minority Report there’s a scene where Tom Cruise walks into a Gap and a retinal scanner reads his (borrowed) eyes and says something like, “Good Morning Mr. Yamamoto. Would you like some more khakis today?” That bothers me less than the Bond franchise and their ilk.
Whether a real company name is used or a fake one substituted seems to hinge on how favorable the company is portrayed. In Cast Away, FedEx is essentially credited with saving Tom Hanks’ life (I think he writes something to that effect on the package with the wings on it.) And now he’s going to be in a film called How Starbucks Saved My Life …
It seems to me there is a difference between a deliberately written name brand tie-in and product placement. Even though using NASCAR and Wonder Bread gives [i]Talladega Nights[/i] credibility that would otherwise be lacking with an obvious name substitution, there was still a ridiculous amount of product placement. It’s not as irritating in a racing movie– after all product sponsorship is part of that world– the obvious excess became downright irritating in some other films. For example: the third act of [i]The Island[/i] was practically beating the audience over the head with it.
I’m not sure if anybody has seen the preview for that new Dane Cook/Jessica Simpson movie, “Employee of the Month”, but you can tell they base the whole movie off of a costco type spinoff chain. I think its a real toss up sometimes when you create fake brands but viewers know what you are actually substituting. In video games I always thought it was lame when there would be a fake burger joint or store that you know who its really suppost to be, but now things have almost gone the total opposite way where they can’t put enough logo’s in our face.
I’ve been waiting for a film to be entirely funded by product placement. It’s gotta happen sometime…
That said, I generally find product placements too obvious and intrusive. Agree however that when they’re relatively organic — as in Minority Report — they add a feeling of realism. In the case of Harold And Kumar, I remember reading the eponymous burger chain didn’t actually endorse the project in any way — quite possible, given it was a stoner flick.
I’d say the most effective product placement in history (after cigarettes, of course) would have to be Apple computers. Considering that 90 percent of the world’s population or more use IBM compats and that 90 percent or more of the world’s film and TV characters use Apples, it’s quite a staggering achievement. And no need to to turn that pesky brand label to camera — by shooting an Apple laptop from its reverse side you get the nicely lit logo right-side up. Pure genius Apple marketing and design people!
As for Blake’s question, it’s now got me thinking that an Apple G5 in the Garden Of Eden might’ve mixed things up in terms of our, er, evolution. Clearly, a comedy.
I also wonder whether there isn’t room for CGI animated comedies based on Frogger and Pac-Man. Hundreds of millions of people know the brand… Same goes for special effects spectaculars based on Defender and Space Invaders.
Yeah, but all the film/media editing software is made for Apple. No one on a film set even has a PC, so even if it wasn’t intentional placement, they’re still going to be grabbing an Apple to put in the scene.
Again, I think it would be a good idea to separate the concerns of production companies and lawyers from those of writers. I do not think you can write a good story if you think about product placement all the time. There are people whose job it will be a go through your script and see where they can put a car or a burger or whatnot. But the interesting thing about brands is that they mean so much more than a thing.
I come back to that idea of mental real estate. People have so many associations with a well known brand, and you can use these associations, play with them, subvert them… The DeLorean time machine is not product placement, I think, but the clever use of mental real estate. After all, honestly, what car would you put a time machine in?
Also, for the best comment on product placement (and most other things concerning moviemaking) watch State and Main.
That brings up a production issue. Do you think they just have a script with a delivery guy who works for The Acme Parcel Co. and then once they have Hanks and Zemeckis on board, take meetings with FedEx, DHL, UPS etc. and say, “okay, who wants in on this?”
I guess what I’m asking is: if you come up with a brilliant concept but it absolutely must be Starbucks or Apple in order to work, would a schmo working on spec be stupid to go ahead and write it without some sort of deal, or at least tacit approval? As opposed to the delivery guy example, where you could write it generically and let the marketing and legal people hash out the specifics during development.
I just ask because this is the sort of thing I obsess over.
Hate to break it to you, but those product placements do not add dollars to a production budget.
I was the brand director for Starbucks for a few years and placed an awful lot of product in a lot of movies and television. Shipped the entire inside of a store to Ally McBeal as a set. Setup the whole Austin Powers II lair for Doctor Evil.
It is not money that changes hands, it is marketing and exposure. For Ally McBeal, we supplied David E Kelly Productions with free coffee sure, and the set was free. But no production dollars. Instead we carried the Vonda Shepard CD in stores. Sold a couple million copies, and both parties benefited.
For AP II, we supplied free coffee to the set (as we did on many productions) and in return asked that they use real Starbucks employees that were also SAG members as the cast in the barista scenes. Then we hosted the premier at the Seattle Film Festival, but we asked for that since we were already hosting it anyway. Got lots of marketing bang for the buck on a dime we’d already committed, and the productioin got a free premier.
But the whole discussion about product integration/product placement is really hilarious to watch from someone who’s done it. Public companies would be slaughtered by shareholders if they kicked in a bunch of dough for production.
No, the value exchange happens on the marketing end. In other words, a brand like Wonder Bread may do a big ad buy for the movie, with its product center stage. Starbucks promotes a movie in 5000 stores, to a coveted audience. Etc.
But nobody on set or at a studio gets paid by an advertiser — the hurdles are so high, and the issues so convoluted from a legal and financial reporting perspective, that it makes no sense.
Back to Blake’s challenge about stories set around products….. hmmm.
Since I’m just back from a road trip (LA to Oklahoma City and back) in my own vehicle, I’d pitch Mustang Miles (my car being that model). Lots of interesting little encounters with folks. But at the moment, it’d be pretty “low concept”. (See, all I got at the moment is the title. Heh.)
The real challenge here, I think, is to have a concept that irrevocably links brand and concept, so that if you remove the specific brand, it falls apart. For that reason, although I haven’t seen either, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and The Devil Wears Prada wouldn’t qualify, since I suspect that beyond the brand names, there’s not much of a tie-in.
So my initial idea of The Adventures of Moet & Chandon – about two wacky Frenchmen (or something) also doesn’t qualify, since it’s too interchangeable with, say, Johnson & Johnson.
How about this: A group of children find that their favorite candy has the power to resurrect the dead in … The Lifesavers. Ha!
Good point, James.
But on the other hand, a good story might be enough if some smart product marketers decide to link their product to the story concept.
A friend of mine is writing a mini-series comic book for DC Comics called “Rush City” which features a GM Pontiac Solstice as part of the concept (the main character drives it). It was a cooperative effort between DC & GM, in developing the story concept.
The point is… it could have been any other stylish sports type car. But that possibility doesn’t lessen the success of the actual pairing of story and product. Admittedly, a good writer (as my friend is) does make the difference.
Hey Blake, do you remember that NASCAR logline I pitched you a few months back (I doubt it.) At the time, you mentioned NASCAR being a tough sell in Hollywood, I guess TALLEDEGA NIGHTS shows otherwise- 100 million rednecks can’t be wrong! (just playing, I liked NASCAR a lot when I was a kid.)
Did you notice the “whiff of death” moment? The pit crew tells Ricky Bobby that a member of his crew was killed to inspire him.