NICOLÒ GALLIO – Marketing & Communication
A HOLISTIC VISION FOR CULTURAL & CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
I have just come back from a pretty intense full immersion session in taboos, censorship and cinema hosted at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Yes, in the Czech Republic, right where Fifty Shades of Grey‘s sex symbol Jamie Dornan was presenting his latest film, Anthropoid. At this time of the year this city has a…
There is little doubt that Slash has a pretty strong work ethic. Since leaving Guns N’ Roses in the mid-1990s, the iconic guitarist has collaborated with countless artists, founded (and dismantled) two bands, Slash’s Snakepit and Velvet Revolver, before happily going solo. Now that he has found an ideal creative team in singer Myles Kennedy…
What immediately strikes you while going through Italian artist Marco Lusini’s biography (1936-1989), are the many art forms he experimented with before finding his ideal medium, painting. Photography, lithography, illustration, black ink drawing, not to mention sculpture and poetry, were all fertile ground in which the Siena-born “astronaut of inner space”, as Riccardo Belloni defined…
Given the fact that I love rock and roll as much as I love cinema, and possibly even more, I have decided to write a series of posts on creativity in the music business by looking in particular at guitar players. I’ll start with a guy from a small town in Indiana, US, who made it in…
I’ve kept the promise in my post from last October and have given Vikings a chance. After watching three seasons I’m definitely happy with History’s TV series, and particularly with the passion actor Travis Fimmel puts into the role of Ragnar Lothbrok. Indeed his dedication to the character could sell the historical drama on its own. So…
It’s cool, free, and the closest experience to a proper crime scene investigation that you can (legally) get. A few years ago, when I was researching the impact of death in the media for my Ph.D. project, Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime would have been a gold mine, given the fact that it provides really…
By now I’m sure all of you have heard of Coma/The Doof Warrior and his flame-throwing guitar. In Mad Max: Fury Road this insanely awesome character with a creepy background story is portrayed by Australian musician iOTA. Fans of the L.A.-based band Mötley Crüe immediately related to him, as they realised that the blind guitarist,…
“And now what?” It sounds like a genuine question to ask a director who has just won a prize in a “A list” film festival. It happened to László Nemes just a few days ago, during the press conference of the Award Winners in Cannes. His first feature, Son of Saul, won the prestigious Grand Prix…
When it comes to torrents and digital piracy, users’ behaviours online are usually tackled under a variety of points of view, which include ethics, laws and copyright issues. But what about the file themselves, whose content is usually ‘invisible’ when people are sharing it via BitTorrent? What if you could have a glimpse of that…
Nowadays everyone seems to be a fashion editor, a professional photographer and even a designer. So, just to put things into perspective, I went back to the roots of some iconic roles in the industry thanks to two documentaries. Fashion is a minefield and style even more so, but we live in the age of…
When you’re an artist who’s desperately trying to make it, no matter in which discipline, there is something more important than having good press coverage, your own space to create, the budget to set up your first show, or even the money to pay the bills. All of these are key success factors for sure,…
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of world-famous galleries and museums? How do they connect with their audiences? What are their routines and how do they arrange the content that we experience as visitors? I’ve reached out to Jane Findlay, Head of Schools and Young Audiences at The British Museum, and asked…
I recently watched John Wick, Chad Stahelski’s directorial debut and Keanu Reeves’ most convincing action flick since The Matrix. In it, the actor portrays a retired hit man who goes back into action to recover his stolen car and avenge a pet dog, the last gift from his deceased wife. Despite being sucked into the…
I was admittedly late in catching up with the touching 2012 documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which I watched long after its director, Malik Bendjelloul, committed suicide in May 2014 after a battle with depression. I knew the documentary’s topic – the quest for the elusive American folk musician Sixto Rodriguez who was virtually unknown…
A few years ago I was writing the dissertation for my BA in Communications delving into the History of Cinema. I approached this field by focusing on a very specific film: Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Vittorio Storaro’s mesmerising cinematography struck my eye immediately and I started to research what influenced the Italian “master of…
My main problem with TV series is time and schedule. Watching one series after the other of my favourite TV show is clearly exciting (and time consuming), but having to synchronise my desire to watch the latest episode with airing dates has always been an issue for me. Mostly because I don’t watch TV the…
Let’s be frank: ideas need to circulate as much as possible, and new terms as well. So I thought I’d spread the word a bit again, given that “Audience Design” is a fairly recent concept introduced just a few years ago by the TorinoFilmLab to raise awareness of the need for a strategic approach to…
When I was much younger I loved watching movies but I did not pay particular attention to the cast and crew. I just enjoyed the stories. It was only later, when I started to study cinema, that I really got into “the who and the what” of filmmaking and began to think about a film…
Is there anything more intimate than your young son asking you to tuck him in? It looks like the perfect portrait of a happy family, so I suppose it was about time for a fan of horror film to twist this idyllic cliché and conceive one of the creepiest short films that I’ve seen in…
There is little doubt that Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was one of last year’s most interesting films in terms of direction and cinematography, not to mention how the whole project was conceived from the beginning. Filming Riggan Thomson’ attempt to adapt Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk…
Making good things out of bad ones seems to be a recurring theme in the music industry, especially when it comes to rock & roll and heavy metal. As a follow up to my previous post about how penniless immigrant Eddie Van Halen rewrote the way electric guitar was played in the early 1970s, I…
I clearly remember, as a teenager, the day I got my first CD from a band I had always heard of, but didn’t have very clear ideas about. I only knew that the guitar player knew his s**t and was said to have re-designed the whole concept of playing the instrument. So one day, when…
Just a few days ago, as the Sundance Film Festival was about to end, a film started making the headlines. Sean Baker’s Tangerine, shot with an iPhone 5s, was enthusiastically saluted as the frontrunner of a new breed of movies that, by spending between $168 and $768 for set up, can achieve quality images for…
I started to research interactive documentaries back in 2013 when I was living in Italy, because this hybrid form of storytelling matched my interest in digital narratives and audience engagement. As soon as I moved to London I looked for people interested in the topic and immediately found out that one of the leading researchers…
I’m always happy to see collaborations among artists grow, and even happier when artistic projects explore different cultures and build bridges between distant worlds. That is why I got very excited about Digital Arabesques 2014. As featured in a recent article on Designboom, the latest collaboration between French digital artist Miguel Chevalier and filmmaker Claude…
Robots and AI are all around us. Deal with it. In the past few days I’ve come across news that made me think about the relationship between art and mechanical – and digital, in this case – means of (re)production. Especially when the connection between humans and machines is blurred like it is nowadays. It…
Being a member of The National Gallery I have already seen its amazing permanent collection many times, as well as quite a few exhibitions (recently, “Rembrandt – The Late Works”). However, I had never had the chance to go behind the scenes and discover how the whole museum works. Thanks to Frederick Wiseman’s documentary National…
I admit it: I’ve cheated. I’ve recently read Carlo Vanoni‘s book In Bed with Mona Lisa – Contemporary Art for Commuters and Curious Minds (La Toletta, 2014) all at once, while on a train from Brussels to London. Which is a shame, because the nice idea about this humorous trip into the world of contemporary…
Let’s face reality: your child does not draw like a conceptual artist or an abstract painter. Usually it’s the other way round: artists can replicate the childlike way of drawing. I say this because I was recently visiting a non-figurative exhibition and I heard the same old comment from a parent, pronounced with a dismissive…
It’s Christmas week and everyone has already ranked their own favourite films to watch during the festive break. Those nostalgic for 1990s comedies for the whole family will probably play Home Alone over and over again; action lovers will opt for Die Hard; fantasy animation enthusiasts will go for The Nightmare Before Christmas; while fans…
After discussing how director Davide Melini started his career, let’s delve into his new short, Deep Shock. Produced by Fabel Aguilera and Melini himself, it is supported by the most important institutions of Malaga, such as the “Diputación de Málaga”, the “Ayuntamiento de Málaga” and the “Málaga Film Office”. According to the official synopsis, the…
It’s not a secret that the film business is one of the most competitive among the creative and cultural industries. So I’m always keen to support emerging filmmakers who are trying to break into it. Davide Melini is an Italian director born in Rome in 1979 and who relocated to Spain a few years ago.…
Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster starts and ends with a hat. A Panama hat, to be precise, worn by actor Tony Leung as master Ip Man. Actually, the whole film focuses on the style at large of the legendary martial artist. He was internationally famous for training a young Bruce Lee while he was living in…
Christmas is coming fast. Sounds menacing, but you better be ready. As I love books, and I suppose you love films since you follow this blog, I am going to suggest an exciting read for the upcoming holidays that combines the two. Whether you live in the UK or not, the name Mark Kermode might…
Films about obsessions usually tell us more about the obsessed than the obsession in itself. That’s why I don’t agree with Jonathan Jones’ review on The Guardian of Teller’s documentary Tim’s Vermeer, which tells the story of Tim Jenison, a tech entrepreneur and inventor who desperately tried to discover the secrets of the painting techniques…
Cine-Excess is one of those places where you can spend your lunch break eating sandwiches and fresh fruit while speaking about moviemaking, crowdfunding and gatekeepers in the film industry with veteran horror directors such as Jeff Lieberman. That’s exactly what happened to me on 15 November, while I was waiting to present my paper at…
In the film industry there is one very specific place where creativity meets business: the market. It’s the place where scriptwriters, filmmakers and producers have the concrete chance to secure a budget for their projects, or find co-production opportunities that might open new international doors to develop their films. It’s also the place where, in…
Big tech companies’ CEOs can be quite unusual people, praised as those few enlightened individuals able to bring grounbreaking visions to the world. On the forefront of design, innovation and technology, they’re worshipped for their unique ability to inspire people and open new roads. But what if these paths lead to unknown territories that question…
What would the best detective on the market do nowadays to solve more cases? Elementary, my dear readers: they would run a blog. If you’re searching for inspiration about personal branding, you then should have a look at Sherlock Holmes’ The Science of Deduction. I am admittedly quite late in catching up with the latest…
After discussing the project’s genesis and some aspects of the storytelling process, I asked director Anrick Bregman to share more insights about immersive tools, music and sound design featured in his web doc The Most Northern Place. Prominent Monkey: Which are the main features that create the immersive experience you designed for the viewer? Anrick…
After discussing the genesis of The Most Northern Place with director Anrick Bregman, I wanted to know more about the engagement aspects of his interactive documentary and discover how he and his team approached this compelling story. Prominent Monkey: In this post you said that a traditional documentary would not achieve the same sense of exploration.…
There is no doubt that digital media is pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. When it comes to documentaries, web docs leave linear narratives behind and allow viewers to experience a more engaging connection with the story portrayed. Very often they are large-scale projects with very consistent budgets, but who said you can’t achieve immersive outcomes…
What happens when The War of the Roses meets American Psycho in the age of talk shows, celebrity TV and social media? If you shake all these elements and add a New York Times bestseller you get Gone Girl, David Fincher’s adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Gillian Flynn. Even if…
Finally I made it: I watched the pilot for Vikings. And after seeing it, I’ll give the Canadian-Irish TV series a chance. We’re actually well into it, with Season 3 scheduled to air on the History television channel in 2015, but better late than never, given the fact that I’ve always been fascinated by Norse…
I’ll start this post by jumping back into memories. Over a year ago, I was on a night flight on my way back to Verona after pitching at the STARTinMED startup forum in Barcelona. After a few hours of sleep I took my car and on a rainy early morning left for Udine to give…
An American photojournalist gone insane in the middle of the jungle, waiting for the crew of a boat with arms wide open: to me this character from Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is still the most iconic among those Dennis Hopper portrayed onscreen. Coincidentally or not, besides being a director and a painter, the actor…
I usually say that crosspollination is the key to today’s creative landscape: film and digital media, storytelling and coding, multi-platform worlds and social innovation, smart cities and interactive stories, gaming technologies and journalism. I couldn’t then resist when I heard that Learn Do Share was coming to London for a free two-day conference packed with…
The Lack is quite an appropriate title for the latest work of Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni, aka Masbedo, an Italian creative duo active within video art, performance and photography. On 31 August their first feature film was screened at the 71th Venice Film Festival as a special event within the Venice Days section. The…
Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Ingrid Bergman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Gould, Paul Newman: some of the most iconic portraits of celebrities, artists and human rights activists of the 20th century were taken by a self-taught photographer born into poverty and segregation in Kansas. Gordon Parks (1912-2006) is probably the most important African American photographer in the…
This post might look a little bit off topic, but it’s for a good cause. Just a few years ago I was an assistant press officer at the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation. FFC is a non-profit organisation focused on supporting scientific research in order to find therapies for patients affected by a genetic disorder…
Hey, it happens. Scientists design a virus to get rid of Alzheimer’s and as a result they wipe out almost the whole of mankind, enhancing the intelligence of apes on the way. Too bad, I’m sure next time they’ll do it better and manage to exterminate us all. Wondering how this idea will affect your…
In the last few years Sons of Anarchy has proved to be one of the most successful American TV series. Its seventh and final season will be airing in September in the U.S. Now might then be the best time ever to be a fan of outlaw motorcycle clubs on the screen. Not long ago…
You’ll feel old many times when watching Boyhood. But not in a negative way, like, for instance, when you go to a rock concert and find yourself surrounded by screaming teenagers younger than you, and a quick look at the bar area is enough to realise that their parents are waiting for the gig…
Optimus Prime wielding a sword and riding a fire-breathing Dinobot is the epitome of the last instalment of the Transformers franchise, a film series that is heavily based on excess, sensory saturation and, here and there, a total lack of self-consciousness. Over the past years I have come to realise that enduring a movie directed…
Videogames, interactive documentaries, VFX: whether you are a media archaeologist, a nostalgic lover of game consoles from the 1980s, a curious investigator of wearable technologies or a fan of the latest hi-tech blockbuster, there is only one place to be in London this summer: the Barbican Centre, home until 14 September to the Digital Revolution…
The above sentence may sound like a pretentious bellicose statement pronounced by a director on the chaotic and high-tech set of the latest summer blockbuster. Instead it was calmly expressed by writer and director David Pope within the small and intimate walls of the Filmmaking Foundation Course at London Film Academy, where the only rotors you…
When it comes to films, I don’t often experience serendipity. When I decide to buy a ticket for a screening I always know what I want to see and it’s very rare for me to change my mind at the latest minute. Yet on 26 June I was forced to do so. I wanted to…
Living conditions in a refugee camp or in a street devastated by a bomb sound abstract to the majority of us. What if technology allowed people to experience these scenarios in an immersive environment, reproducing real events through actual audio, video and photographs taken at the scene? Nonny de la Peña calls this technology-driven opportunity…
As X-Men fans know well, the movies of this franchise can be either really good or quite horrific. I think that Days of Future Past is among the former. Despite the abundance of special effects, it is a film driven by its characters, which manages to balance furious rhythm with moral dilemmas, and action-packed sequences…
I have always thought that part of the success of street art lies in the fact that these artists manage to integrate their oeuvres within urban spaces in the most unexpected ways. Their provoking works interact with what’s around them and force us to view walls, bridges, doors and windows through different eyes. Outside of…
I have seen it happening over and over again. Comic books, horror movies, rock & roll, violent videogames… So I wasn’t surprised at all when an Internet meme made it to the headlines as the new outcome of creativity to be blamed for spreading fear, threatening order and transforming children into psycho killers. Whether a…
“In another time I guess I would have been content with filming girls and cats. But you don’t choose your time.” Chris Marker Judging by some of the works displayed at his first UK retrospective, not to mention the title of the exhibition itself, Chris Marker really loved felines. I think the French artist and…
Like the catchphrase says, “haters gonna hate”, but the King of monsters couldn’t care less. Gareth Edwards’ reboot of one the most popular franchises in the history of Japanese sci-fi films has already destroyed the box office using its signature atomic breath (and some brand new marketing tools). As for fans and detractors, they are busy…
After discussing how Claude Mossessian started his career, in this second instalment of the interview with the filmmaker Prominent Monkey focuses on his work with French digital artist Miguel Chevalier. Prominent Monkey: I find your long-lasting collaboration with Miguel Chevalier particularly interesting. How did you start to work with him? Claude Mossessian: I met him…
You might have heard about his work first after The Huffington Post spread the word about one of his latest collaboration with French digital artist Miguel Chevalier, but Claude Mossessian has had a camera in his mind from a tender age. Young Claude, who is now 49 and lives in Sorède, in southern France, was…
If you’re an artist trying to break into the crowded music business, then Lenny Abrahamson’s film Frank will speak to you because it addresses one of the most delicate questions for creative professionals nowadays: how do I reach my audience? [some SPOILERS ahead] When wannabe musician Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is offered the chance of a lifetime joining…
When we’re asked about a colour to describe war, we hardly find ourselves thinking of bright pink. Yet this is the palette that Irish photographer Richard Mosse has chosen to describe the cycle of violence in Congo. His work on the topic is well known to the international public, at least since his exhibition The Enclave at the 2013…
Despite some remarkable exceptions, Wally Pfister’s ambitious directorial debut has been plagued by worrying box office results and very bad international reviews so far. Yet, I wanted to give Transcendence a chance. So a few days ago I was sitting in a cinema in London asking myself: a) why hipsters could not be on time for…
If the recent Heartbleed bug got you worried that someone could take advantage of your online assets, you might now want to know some more about “info threats”. Luckily, you don’t need to hang out with international wanted criminals to have a glimpse of what a cyber attack looks like: projects like Netwars are here…
I wasn’t a fan of “hard sciences” when I was younger. Actually, I had a fatal attraction for social sciences (if the difference still makes any sense). Maybe I never fell in love with physics and chemistry because of the lack of passion – not to mention the poor will of engagement with students –…