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…
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,…
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…
When was the last time you felt mesmerised and guilty at the same time, while looking at a piece of art? It happened to me last Saturday more than once when I was visiting the Anthropocene exhibition at the MAST Foundation in Bologna. I knew I was going to experience an impactful show given the topics…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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,…
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]Duff McKagan did it again. He wrote another book, accompanied by an EP. But I won’t talk about the new How to Be a Man (and Other Illusions) here, as I’ll focus on the 2011 New York Times bestseller It’s So Easy (and Other Lies) instead, which I have just devoured.…
[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…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] Let’s face it: when well-known film directors work for advertising, there is always a mix of curiosity and scepticism. While the most intransigent fans don’t like when they mix films and commercials, many are intrigued by how the unique visual style of filmmakers like David Lynch and Baz Luhrmann…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] Star Wars fans are well aware of the many ideas that have not worked in Episode I – The Phantom Menace. But two details in particular are hated by virtually everyone who loves the universe created by George Lucas, and both have to do with the space granted to…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] It may not sound as the most creative title science fiction fans have been waiting for, but the news of the return of Predator on the big screen as … The Predator, along with the first promotional image and the tag line “You’ll never see him coming”, was welcomed with…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…