NICOLÒ GALLIO – Marketing & Communication
A HOLISTIC VISION FOR CULTURAL & CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
With the end of the year approaching fast, I figured this was the right time to follow up on the 2022 projects roundup started in my previous post. I left you when I was planning my staying at the Cannes Film Festival, so let’s pick up from there. Cannes 2022 was a whirlwind of conferences and…
Sometimes – more often than not, actually – I get asked what I do exactly for a living and how a year in the industry I work in looks like. Although the answer changes according to the industry I am involved at the time of the question – sometimes it’s the film business, sometimes other cultural and…
Freshly launched online, Superzoom – The Other Side of Fashion is the platform designed by Nuova Libra Editrice and the new digital hub of the Zoom on Fashion Trends editorial staff. But it is much more than an extension of the well-known fashion trend analysis magazine. As well as being the operational centre for the Bologna-based publisher’s…
The year 2020 ended with an assignment in the field of writing for the web (in Italian) that I am doubly fond of. On the one hand, it is because I was involved as a copywriter/editor in a digital project for the martial arts and holistic disciplines sector, which has been a passion of mine…
The year that is now drawing to a close has undoubtedly been one of the most difficult for the film industry. However, in the face of closed cinemas, cancelled festivals, postponed new film releases and sets on pause, it is with great pleasure that Roberto Braga and I returned to collaborate with Filmmaker, the documentary…
August has just begun and the first session of the 2020 edition of the Script 2 Film Workshops, the Mediterranean Film Institute’s (MFI) development program for films, documentaries and TV series, has just ended. Given the difficulties caused by Covid-19 in organizing international travels for participants from all over Europe and abroad, and in making them work…
The Thesis It’s been seven years since I defended my Ph.D. thesis at the University of Bologna’s Department of the Arts. Framing Death – La morte in diretta, tra cinema e media digitali was a multidisciplinary work aimed at accounting how death was portrayed in some audiovisual products and disseminated by what, at the time,…
Months ago, I had the chance to interview Tom Herck regarding his latest performance at Burning Man and I was left with the impression that his art stroke a chord with the public primarily because of his ability to connect his creative universe with major issues felt in society, whether on a macro or micro level. It…
Developing social media campaigns for films is always exciting for me, and my involvement with Giancarlo Soldi’s documentary Cercando Valentina – Il mondo di Guido Crepax, which I recently wrote about, was far from being a rare event in my collaboration with Roberto Braga within an industry we both deeply care about. In this post I wanted…
As I mentioned in my previous post, the isolation imposed for the COVID-19 pandemic is deeply affecting the film and entertainment industry. At the beginning of the lockdown in Italy, many agencies and consultants in the marketing and communication sector wondered what they could do to help their community go through this difficult time and make…
People are already saying now that there is a world before and one after the lockdown enforced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not only true for our personal lives but also for our jobs. Being involved in many projects for the film industry, I initially witnessed this transition while working on…
I have been a practitioner of Yang-style Taiji Quan and Qi Gong for many years, so I was more than happy to lend my “writing hand” when asked to contribute to the launch of heartmind Lab, a brand new project that brings together a team of scientists and academics to combine the most recent breakthroughs in…
It’s a good day to be a fan of TV series in Milan, as Stardust by QMI is kicking off the first edition of Series Con this weekend. Packed with talks, guests and talents, special screenings and awards, it’s a two-day event (11-12 May) devoted to television and serialised entertainment hosted at Tenoha Milano. While Skam Italia will…
Spring has arrived (finally!) and it brought back (old) new collaborations. After completing a few exciting digital PR projects for the Milan-based entertainment marketing agency QMI Interactive over the past five months, I have resumed some of my favourite teaching duties. In March I again joined the team of the Buyer 2.0: Professional Manager in Fashion Activities…
2018 is almost done and I am writing from Belgium right now, where I am spending what remains of the year with my wife’s family. Around this time one usually goes for the best nine Instagram posts but I chose to sum up my recent trip to L.A. with a personal list of what I…
It’s been quite a hectic couple of months for me. I have been involved in many projects within the audiovisual industry as a digital PR in addition to my usual activity as a consultant for cinema and television. But I wanted to briefly tell you about a training activity I took part in this week…
If you were following me on social media in the past few days, you might have noticed that I was on another assignment for the online magazine Bobos.it – a trendy one, actually. While Milan was going crazy for Fashion Week, I skipped some of the glamour to sit in the dark of the screening…
Let’s face it: we all have some wrongs to right. Sometimes, though, you need a pair of extra hands in order to get a revenge while getting your a** out of a complicated situation. And who’s better than a professional to help you out? Since former CIA agent Robert McCall is one of the best…
Among the many film festivals in the world, there is one I hold particularly dear. It’s the Verona Film Festival – Schermi d’Amore, born in the city of Romeo and Juliet and entirely devoted to sentimental cinema and mélo. This is where I started to work in the film industry a decade ago, when I…
The premise of this post goes back in time over ten years ago, when I was studying for my MA in Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production at the University of Bologna. One of my pals over there was Markus Duffner, who was into Monty Python and unconventional audiovisual narratives. Fast forward a decade, he has…
As I am writing these few lines, I have just come back from the first residency of the Script 2 Film Workshops 2018. With my luggage still half unpacked, having arrived home last night straight from the island of Nisyros, I am glad of having joined the Mediterranean Film Institute for the third time in a…
I have admittedly been silent over the past few months on this platform. Yet it was for a good reason, as I have been busy dividing my time across film marketing, copywriting and, most of all, contributing to a brand new exciting project across fashion, communications and media, which I am going to tell you…
Because of my activity as a researcher and film marketing consultant, I regularly meet many professionals operating across all of the areas of the industry. A good portion of them are worried about the future, but just don’t know how to face what’s changing in the film business. One of the key theme everyone is…
Gli amanti di film e serie televisive in Italia sanno che il martedì hanno un appuntamento fisso con il proprio edicolante di fiducia (o la cassetta della posta, o lo schermo del proprio pc/tablet/smartphone). È il giorno in cui il nuovo numero di Film Tv, settimanale di cinema, televisione, musica e spettacolo, raggiunge i suoi…
This week I ran a crash course in media, audiences and communication at ifs internationale filmschule köln gmbh. I was invited to ifs to host a two-day workshop with the students of the MA Digital Narratives, a full-time study program combining theory and practice while enabling the development of projects with digitization at the core.…
I guess by now summer vacations are pretty much over for everyone, and we all are already mourning our holiday routines and longing to go back to our favourite stress-free spots as soon as possible. So no heavy topics here: I just wanted to share my personal list of “loves at first sight” from the…
Imagine you’re surrounded by one of the bluest seas, fed delicious seafood while watching breath-taking sunsets, and discuss story arcs and characters’ motivations over a few glasses of ouzo, Greece’s traditional anise-flavoured drink. It may sound like paradise, but it’s actually hard work too if you’re a scriptwriter, filmmaker or producer attending a full immersion…
It took Jan Fabre over 40 years to conceive what I was about to see in April at the Abbey of San Gregorio in Venice. The Belgian artist’s fascination for the themes of metamorphosis, life and death is well documented, and on this specific occasion, a collateral event of the 57th International Art Exhibition –…
November brought a bunch of great news for TorinoFilmLab-supported films (which month did not, anyway?). For my ongoing series of posts focused on TFL releases and work in progress projects, especially related to the 2012 Script&Pitch and Audience Design Programmes, I’m glad to share three updates from Chile, France and Italy. Principal photography for La…
The reason why I like follow-up posts is that, at least in my case, they add good news to good news. This one in particular is an update of an ongoing series focused on the release of TorinoFilmLab-supported films. I read the first draft for Kevin Meul’s debut feature film My First Highway in 2012,…
Autumn will be a very busy season for TorinoFilmLab, which is introducing major changes in its training activities for the audiovisual industry. The Torino-based laboratory supporting international talents has just unveiled what prospect participants and Alumni can expect to be fully introduced to between this fall and the beginning of 2017. First of all, as…
On 3 September some of the Financial Times Weekend’s best-known writers and columnists joined guest speakers and leading figures from fashion, the art world, food and wine for the inaugural edition of the FT Weekend Live Festival. No less than seven stages were devoted to discuss ideas and trends across businesses, markets and creative industries,…
It’s no secret that film is a tough industry and it usually takes a while to enjoy the fruit of one’s hard work. But if you don’t give up and keep on pushing your project, that time will come. If you read my blog it is also no secret that I have had the privilege…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] It is very easy to get used to beauty. Being awakened by the sound of the sea; seeing freshly caught octopuses hanging in the wind in front of the restaurants on the waterfront; walking in the bottom of a volcano… All these things become normal after a few days.…
While fans of Penny Dreadful are still mourning the recently announced ending of Showtime’s horror drama TV series after the Season 3 finale, I thought it was a good idea to catch-up with someone who worked on the show. You may remember Davide Melini from my previous interview on his homage to the “Giallo” film…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] At the UK premiere of Tale of Tales at Curzon Mayfair on 1 June I was expecting that the audience would be fascinated by the locations of this sumptuous re-telling of Giambattista Basile‘s fairy tale collection Pentamerone. Very soon into the presentation director Matteo Garrone said jokingly that with…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] As soon as you think you have spread the word on the latest marketing stunt implemented to promote Deadpool, a new one takes its place in a never-ending process. For over a year now we have been used to the release of news related to the cinematic universe of…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] Last week I kicked off my complementary membership at Curzon Cinemas with a gleefully blasphemous film, which made me laugh a lot, but understandably won’t appeal to some viewers with little sense of humour when it comes to religion. Between satire and dystopian fantasy disguised as a black comedy,…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] I have always respected László Nemes‘ integrity as a filmmaker. On 12 April, at a special event for the launch of his first feature film at Curzon Soho, the Hungarian director once more showed his uncompromising approach to the screening of his debut. As per his request, no one would…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] In a sense, this post comes full circle, as almost two years ago on this blog I wrote a comment on the promotional campaign for X-Men: Days of Future Past. I used Bryan Singer’s film as a case study for lectures and masterclasses, and after a while, when Professor…
After Al-Qaeda’s propaganda videos, but before ISIS’, I was researching the space occupied by death within cinema and digital media. It was just a matter of time before I delved into the urban legend of the snuff movie. So, for a while, some British colleagues I was working with jokingly nicknamed me “Mr. Snuff”. My…
There is a peculiar contradiction at the heart of Belgian artist Jan Fabre‘s latest project, ‘The Man Who Bears the Cross’. As a reflection on the relationship between heaven and earth, it is first of all an intimate dialogue within the self and an unspeakable dimension. But being an installation hosted in the Cathedral of…
I suppose that, after three times attending the same event, one can be considered a ‘regular’, if not a ‘veteran’. Then this is the case for me at Cine-Excess, the conference and festival on global cult film traditions: I attended and presented a talk last year, and in 2011 this was my very first truly…
I really like film markets. They give you the feeling of a parallel world. They are so full of events and yet totally unknown to the majority of the people who just attend the regular activities of a film festival such as screenings, talks and meet and greets with actors and directors. The market is…
There is a very peculiar school in Turin, Italy, named after J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye’s protagonist Holden Caulfield. Created in 1994 by a group of friends in their thirties, including writer Alessandro Baricco, Scuola Holden is now one of the places to be if you want to learn the art of…
Here I am, waiting to board another plane to go back to London after three days in Poland. This time I’m writing a quick post from Gdańsk airport, on my way back from the 40th Gdynia Film Festival where I joined the TorinoFilmLab team and ran a masterclass in Audience Design with my colleague and…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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 –…