Paddington (2015)
Film Rights (franchise, sequel, book etc):
The story of how Paddington bear came to London and met the Browns is based on the Paddington Bear books written by author, Michael Bond.
Film Budget:
€38.5 million ($50–55 million)
Production Company (Warner Bros, Film Four etc):
Heyday Films
StudioCanal
Director (plus other films they’ve made):
Paul King directed Paddington. He directed 2009's "Bunny and the Bull" as well as numerous tv movies and series, like "Under One Roof" and "The Pajama Men: Last Stand to Reason". However the most well-known project directed is "Come fly with me", a comedy series starring David Walliams and Matt Lucas.
Main Star 1 (Plus other films):
Ben Whishaw voices the young Peruvian Bear, Paddington. He has also played "Q" in Bond films, "Skyfall" and "Spectre". He played "Sonny Watts" in 2015's "Suffragette", and "Herman Melville" in "In the Heart of the Sea".
Main Star 2 (Plus other films):
Nicole Kidman played "Millicent", the taxidermist, in Paddington. Nicole Kidman is a well known Australian actress, remembered for her role in 2007's "The Golden Compass" as Mrs. Coulter, and "Satine" in "Moulin Rouge". She also starred as "Joanna Eberhart" in "The Stepford Wives".
Brief Storyline:
A young Peruvian Bear travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he meets the kindly Brown family, who offer him a temporary haven.
Production Details (where was it was filmed? animation? special effects? etc:
The production extensively used the facilities at one of Europe’s largest studios, Elstree, shooting at the famous George Lucas Stage and Stage 7. These lots were used for the interior scenes of the Brown family home, which in this portrayal takes a battering from flooding and fires that ensue during Paddington’s stay. The feature also shot scenes around Paddington Station (the reason Paddington is so named) and a few scenes were shot in the picturesque Windsor Gardens, London. Part of the feature was also filmed in Costa Rica that doubled as Peru, home of the spectacled bear.
The actor playing Paddington (Ben Wishaw), wore a head-mounted camera during the voice recordings, and this provided a reference for the animators when it came to expressions and lip movements.
Grillo explained that it can get to a point where a character is so realistic that it loses its appeal. With a character like Paddington, it is important to retain a degree of charm. Bear muzzles also move in a different way to human mouths, so creating an algorithm to translate the movements would have been a huge R&D experiment.
"The angle that we took was to say this has got to be real enough that it sits in live action, it works with the humans and it looks photo-realistic in its texture and it has a lot of anatomical qualities that you’d recognise in real bears," Grillo said.
One of the biggest pressures on animators is speed. Grills said the ambition is always to be as close to real-time as possible, but animating a photo-real lead character in almost every shot places huge demands on computational resources.
Framestore uses high-performance Intel technology – ranging from Core i7-based workstations to powerful HPC servers – in order to design and render low-resolution visualisations of the character.
"The face and the expression and everything that is him is so tightly bound by that look, that without being able to see those renders, see how he feels in any given situation, you’d be really limited; you’d be working blind," said Grillo.
Release date:
28th November 2014
How wide was its release?
Two other films released the same week:
In the UK, according to launching films, "Horrible Bosses 2" and "I am Ali" came out the same day as Paddington.
Main Competitor film (released around the same month):
In the UK, according to launching films, "The Hunger Games, Mockingly Part 1" came out 8 days prior to Paddington. I think "Mockingjay" would have been Paddington's competitor as both films are aimed at the overlapping teenage group, with Paddington aiming at mid teens and younger, whilst The Hunger Games going for young teens and older. Secondly, both films are based on beloved books.
Target audience for the films:
Families with children of 14 years old or younger; either female or male.
What are the films main selling points?
It has a charming storyline based on a beloved book franchise so the film will gain support from those who like the original stories, like parents who grew up with Paddington and want their children to experience the same. Furthermore, parents are more likely to take children because they know what to expect after reading the books. The main selling points are the visual effects, the character development, the world building and humour.
Example of Promotion 1 - give details
There was a London premiere in Leicester square's Odeon.
Example of Promotion 2 - give details
Before the release of the film, 52 statues of Paddington appeared all around London with different designs instead of his signature blue coat and red hat, to promote the film.
Example of Promotion 3 - give details
Selfridges made stunning window displays to promote Paddington and had a gift shop with a tiny museum of Paddington inside.
How large was the marketing strategy?
Paddington was released on 28 November 2014 in the United Kingdom, where it took in $8 million (£5.1 million) on its opening weekend, and topped the box office for two weeks. It was StudioCanal's highest opening and the second-highest 2014 family film debut in the country behind The Lego Movie.Personally it felt like a lot of effort was put into the marketing, and it was perfect timing as more people would be "up town" doing their christmas shopping so they're more likely to see all these events. They can also visit Paddington station. Although it is a British independent film, they did limit the marketing to only London (understandably as that's where it's set) but I think elsewhere it was very minimal, and only known about through the odd trailer, and mention on social media. There were a few cast interviews, both online and on tv, usually featuring Hugh Bonneville due to his recognisable role in Downton Abbey. In hindsight, the film did limit itself, presuming from the beginning it would only appeal to Brits, and so less effort was made in pushing the film across seas. Saying this, it did open third place in its first weekend, earning $19.2 million in the US.
Are there examples of the following:
- Toys
- Website
- Social Media
- Video Game
- Fast Food Merchandise - the quality of the march would be sufficiently low and tarnish the high quality book's/film's identity, so no.
- *fairly* High Profile Premiere
- Tv Appearances
- News Reports
The cast and studio interact with their audience via social media.
What do you consider the aim of the campaign to be? (to be entertaining, exciting, cool, interactive, build on prior success, be totally unique, build on star success, Create a brand etc):
The aim of the campaign was initially be exciting and build suspense as well as be totally unique, hence the statues around London. However, once the official trailers with film footage landed/the film released, their campaign diverted as they aimed to build on the prior success of Bond's books.
No comments:
Post a Comment