The Greatest Movie Ever Sold Page #6

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to tell people that even in the core program,

they're being exposed to an advertisement.

Robert Weissman loooves JetBlue!

Happy Jetting!

Wow, gosh, Morgan,

Pretty clever.

Thanks for Hying me here for that,

I guess you have more power than I thought,

While Robert may be leading the charge

to get rid of product placement

another guy practically invented it.

In Hollywood, if you need a can

you call Norm.

If you need a been you ca! Norm.

In fact, if you need just about anything,

you ca! One man,

Norm Marshall.

If anyone can tell me how much influence

brands are going to have

over my movie, it's him.

Years ago, we represented Alka-Seltzer,

And we got a call from one of our friends

and he said,

"Hey, the director just called a shot

"and he wants the character, it's a comedy...

"And he wants the character

to chew an Alka-Seltzer tablet

"and then foam at the mouth. "

We immediately jumped in the middle of it

and had a direct call to the director

who immediately started giving me

some push-back and I, you know...

We couldn't resolve it,

so I called the transportation coordinator

and said "Billy, bring all the cars back. "

So Billy went to the producer and said,

"How'd you piss off Norm Marshall?"

"Well, I just was talking to him

about this Alka-Seltzer thing"

"Well, he wants all his cars back. "

And then he calls back and says,

"We've changed the Alka-Seltzer scene,"

So those are the kinds of things

that you can't do from Madison Avenue,

or whatever, and that's how fluid

the industry is, it changes very...

- On a moment.

- Yeah.

Who has more power and influence

in Hollywood, writers or brands?

The individual writer on the individual show,

if that show is successful,

has more power than the individual brand,

but overall there is going to be a moment,

and I don't think it's very far off,

where the larger brands,

meaning the larger advertisers,

can dictate to the network the conditions

under which they're prepared to advertise,

Do you guys ever

recommend script changes?

- Absolutely,

- Yeah.

- Doesn't always happen, but,"

- Right.

Thank you for calling

Straight Arrow Products.

I've gotta try to keep a straight face,

Are you there? Hello?

- Hello,

- Hey

We just wanted to get a feel

for the idea of the scene

- and how you were gonna position...

- For us, the whole goal

is to try and put something in there...

Products that we think that are interesting,

that could be fun, that at the same time

represent an extension",

The extension

of what we're trying to make with this film,

Thats good

'cause that's what we liked about it.

Because again, the image

is to keep Mane 'n Tail fun.

Yeah, I completely agree, and so for me,

in the scene that we wanna do,

you literally start off

on a close-up of the bottle.

Like, there's the bottle.

You pull out to see here, you know,

here we are in the bathtub.

I'm there washing my hair,

You pull out a little more,

you see me washing my little boys hair,

You pull out a little bit more,

and as I turn to the left

and there I am

washing my Shetland pony in the tub,

- There you go!

- There you go!

It works for us.

We'll probably see

a shot of it in the beginning,

maybe have something in the middle

where we have a phone call

talking about the placement

and then have it in the end.

Perfect.

Okay. That sounds good then.

Anything else we can answer

for you guys right now?

No, that was just the concern.

I wanted to hear exactly

what you guys were gonna be doing with it

in the SCENES and that's about if.

We've been a genuine company

for the past 40 years,

- Right.

- And we do not...

And we do not just don't...

Hey people have fun with us.

They enjoy us.

We have a well-rounded good will

between our equine business

and our human side.

I mean, this is truly a rare product

in the fact that it's crossed-over

as successful as it has

I completely agree,

And it still continues to be used

by horse and people so that will...

And this is a worldwide product

so we try to keep it fun and protect it.

Well, guys, this is gonna be great.

Thank you so much,

and I'm so glad you guys

want to be in the movie,

NO, thank you for taking the time with us.

Rm glad you liked me product.

It's my pleasure, thank you, guys,

All right. Bye-bye. Thanks,

- Bye.

- Bye-bye.

Awesome I

The official shampoo of

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold Mane 'n Tail,

My concern is storytelling, not story-selling,

And I don't want to be someone

who's trying shove a product

down someone's throat,

I'm trying to make people believe

these characters are real.

I've never been told, you know,

Have them hold it a little bit higher,

and get a little bit closer to his face. "

I've never been told that.

Until I started directing movies,

I didn't realize how it worked.

And then two guys in suits come down

to the set with a product and, like,

"Yeah, you need to use this in the scene,"

I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

I haven't done that much

product placement in my movies

because, for the most part,

I've actually been usually refused.

If I wanna use...

I think all my first scripts

always had some scene

that took place at a Denny's,

Because I had many scenes in my early 20s

that took place at a Denny's.

And Reservoir Dogs,

in the original script the opening scene

where they're all talking, at a Denny's.

All right, the opening scene in Pulp Fiction,

Pumpkin and Honey Bunny at a Denny's.

- Yeah.

- In both cases, Denny's goes, "No!"

Truthfully, I don't ever notice it

unless it's super obvious.

And then when it's super obvious,

it becomes ridiculously obvious

and then it can break the reality.

- Pardon me?

- Is it advertising?

Oh, f*** yeah,

It's the movie business.

And the game now is,

"How cheap can you make that movie?"

And "How much profit can you make?"

For a long lime, people would say

there's a line between art and commerce.

Ls that line just getting thinner and thinner?

There are still very, very powerful

and very talented artists

musically and in Elm,

Like, bands like Radiohead,

Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson,

who are clearly not interested in this.

Artistic integrity, whatever,

I mean, you know,

how do you tell the story you intended to tell

without compromising?

Yes. There's a bit of compromise,

but, like I said, if there's a car in a movie,

why not be a car that a brand is helping

reach your budget?

Do you think it's selling out?

To who? We're all selling out.

GE is my boss, really, okay?

They build jet engines and weapons systems

and all kinds of crazy electronic appliances

and they don't give a flying f*** about ark,

So we have three spots

that we're gonna look at,

The first one looks at the healthful aspects

of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice.

Where you see me right there

in the middle of a pomegranate Held,

There's only one problem,

You can't shoot that spot

because there are no pomegranates

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