The Movie's (Marketing) That Made Me

I’ve blogged previously about my time at Universal and Momentum Pictures, where I worked almost exclusively as a home entertainment marketeer and executive producer of special interest programming. I had ambitions of working on theatrical marketing campaigns almost as soon as I joined Universal, in 1998, but I had been in the home entertainment sector at this stage for nearly a decade, having been a buyer previously, so it was hard to shake that tag off, but I finally did when I joined Warner Music Entertainment a decade later in 2008.?

I’ve also previously blogged about my time at WME, so I won’t rehash all of that but, suffice to say, we worked across music, music video, special interest programming, producing original short comedy and acquiring and releasing feature films and documentaries. One of the first theatrical film projects I worked on was Bruce Dickinson’s (of Iron Maiden fame) film?‘Chemical Wedding’?(the next blog in this series) but then along came a documentary about Junior Eurovision, called ‘Sounds Like Teen Spirit’, and it knocked my socks off.?

SLTS?had played at Toronto in 2008 and was available for U.K. distribution. I’m not sure how much we paid for it, or whether there was much competition for it, but it had been produced by Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley for Number 9 Films and written and directed by?Jamie Jay Johnson. Stephen was an industry legend and I had read the book on Palace Pictures, ‘The Egos Have Landed’, so I was very much in awe of him and was incredibly chuffed to get a chance to work with him.?

I think Stephen saw an opportunity with Warner Music on board to really do something with the music from the film, but the truth was that we were inexperienced when it came to releasing theatrical film as a company. However, I did have plenty of second-hand experience, having been in film distribution for a decade by this point.?

I absolutely adored this film, it hit me on a deep emotional level and the critics all thought it was incredible too. I hadn’t even heard of Junior Eurovision, but the documentary was a revelation, and it was profoundly empathetic towards its junior subjects. I poured my heart and soul into the release, probably to the detriment of other office duties at the time, and so did Stephen. Perhaps he could see that I needed guidance or maybe he just desperately wanted it to work and knew how hard it was going to be. A documentary on Junior Eurovision certainly doesn’t sell itself, but then again, if a doc on spelling competitions (2002’s?‘Spellbound’) can break out, then maybe this could as well? But lightning rarely strikes twice like that in film distribution, unfortunately…

Stephen very much took charge early on, pretty much insisting that we create the trailer and poster with his go-to agency, Creative Partnership. They were one of the very best film creative agencies, but possibly a little out of my budget range for a small doc release, but they really came up with the goods on both the poster and the trailer - even if Jamie found the trailer excruciating to watch initially, for some reason. The trailer was immaculate in my estimation, but he really struggled with it. I felt like it was a semi-traumatic experience for him. You can view the trailer here and judge for yourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0wMn3cMrnI

Jamie was rather wary of me. I think he really wanted his mate Tom at Metrodome to do the marketing. He had done films like Donnie Darko, so was an indie marketing star, and what had I done? Well, lots of DVD releases that had made a tonne of money, some of them real prestige films, like Lost in Translation, but not theatrical releases. But I think that I eventually won him over, by constantly showing up and looking for new angles with which to promote the film. Having said that, I swallowed my pride and met up with Tom at the behest of Jamie to get some marketing tips.

Stephen and I went along to the U.K. Film Council and did our best to beat them into submission, to give us a grant to boost our marketing budget, and they eventually relented. There is no way that I could have done that without him. We also had regular meetings at the offices of Number 9 Films where I got to know Elizabeth and the other team members at the time, Stephen’s assistant, Joanna Laurie and Co-producer, Kate Lawrence. We were joined by Zoe Flower on publicity who was then working for Em Foundation, and it was a great experience working with everyone involved. We were a really focused and dedicated team.?

One of the caveats of being a music label was committing to releasing a CD soundtrack of the film, something I personally oversaw. Like a Tarantino soundtrack, I picked out a key line of dialogue between every track - which were a mix of original songs by the junior Euro performers and published songs by artists such as Graham Coxon and Sebastien Tellier. I was very proud of the result and still have a copy of the CD at home, with a couple of the finished DVDs.

It was very much the early days of social media, but I set up a Facebook Group for the film and we harnessed the featured acts as much as possible in the campaign, ultimately bringing the Cyprus entrant,?George Ioannides, and his family over the U.K. to appear on?This Morning?with Eamonn Holmes, which was quite the coup for an indie doc release.?

I have stayed in touch with the family ever since and met up with them all again in London in 2019 to see the now grown-up Georges perform as a lead in the West End production of Gloria Estefan’s musical,?‘On Your Feet’?playing?Emilio Estefan.?It’s really quite something to see someone grow up from schoolboy to West End lead during a ten year period in your own career!

We played the film at the opening of the East End Film Festival in Dalston in 2009 and at the afterparty at The Rhythm Factory the (too-tall) band from Belgium, ‘Trust’ played a live set. We flew them over especially and this I felt was a great achievement. ‘Go big or go home’, I say, and it didn’t get any bigger than having a live set played after the film by one of the film’s key protagonists, even if they did only come 15th?in the 2007 final! Also, at this event was Cyprus' young Georges, who treated us all to a stomping live Karaoke version of Queen's 'Show Must Go On'.

We also did a Q&A screenings at the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge and the Picturehouse Greenwich, which I also travelled to - I didn't miss a single beat of this release...

Like many great docs about kids and obscure subject-matters, convincing audiences to come isn’t a forgone conclusion. The reviews were 5-star level kind of outstanding. We had made national breakfast broadcast news, had the outside back cover of Time Out (paid for by the U.K. Film Council) and played at a cool festival, even bringing one of the acts over to perform at the opening party. We had worked with a top creative agency to ensure that we had an outstanding trailer and poster, but sadly it just wasn’t to be. The film came and went with barely a trace on the box office charts.

It’s one thing seeing a film at a screening in a professional capacity or as a critic. Those of us that did all loved it. But persuading a member of the public to come out and shell out cash to see it in a cinema is another thing altogether. We did our best to convey this, and the critics mainly obliged with their 5 star reviews.?

What is perhaps even more tragic is that, by choosing to release with Warner Music Entertainment, the film has now been lost in the sands of time. The division I worked for was closed down soon after the release, so the film never got to have a digital release or get put on a streaming service, such as Netflix, like so many other films have. I’d love to have seen it gather deserved cult status in its later life in the way that so many other great, but underrepresented at release, films do - where they eventually rise to the surface like the best quality cream in a cup of coffee.?

Now you can just about find a copy of the DVD on Music Magpie or eBay, or if you’re lucky track down a copy of the CD. I imagine that the rights will revert to the producers by around 2024, so perhaps it will see the light of day again in some capacity, that is if anyone has the appetite to revisit it. Maybe it’ll be too late by then.

At the end of the night, at the East End Film Festival U.K. premiere, I did get a mention of thanks from Jamie. I had, after all, sunk my heart and soul and a whole chunk of my time into the release, and I knew that was a rare thing to get from a U.K. distributor. Overall, it just wouldn’t be a good use of time…time devoted to one small release that, ultimately, lost money.

I learned an awful lot working with Elizabeth and Stephen and it was a total privilege to have had such a wonderful opportunity…and it’s still one of my favourite docs of all time.?