Sunday, February 12, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Distribution
The Weinstein Company(United States)
Lionsgate (United Kingdom)
StudioCanal Germany
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group
Mars Distribution
Vértigo Films
BIM Distribuzione
The Weinstein Company (TWC) is a multimedia production and distribution company launched in October 2005 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films in 1979. TWC also encompasses Dimension Films, the genre label founded in 1993 by Bob Weinstein. During Harvey and Bob’s tenure at Miramax and TWC, they have received 341 Oscar nominations and won 81 Academy Awards. The Weinstein Co. went back into business with John Carney, paying an estimated $3 million for U.S. rights to the Irish filmmaker's next movie, Sing Street.
The Weinstein Co. is already distributing Carney's movie "Begin Again," which opens June 27 and stars Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo and Adam Levine.
Harvey:
No one captures this story more perfectly or with such honesty than director John Carney in his most recent film Sing Street. Music is the fabric of Carney’s films. First with his incredible film Once, which went on to win an Oscar for best song and became a Broadway hit winning eight Tony Awards, and then again Carney captured the spirit of New York City through film and music in Begin Again. With Sing Street he sums up the dream of a boy, his band, and the girl with warmth, humor, charm and all the awkwardness of being a teenager. Not since John Hughes has this been done so well on screen. I ran to see Pretty In Pink when it came out in the ’80s. I’m sure most people think I only watched John Ford and François Truffaut films, but John Hughes captured the ’80s generation. Molly Ringwald was that girl every boy picked up a guitar or microphone to impress. Lucy Boynton fills Molly’s shoes perfectly in Sing Street. Just as he did with Once and Begin Again, Carney creates magic and triumph — two things that we can all use in these times. Ask anybody who’s seen it, they’ll agree what a terrific movie this is.
LionsGate UK
On October 17, 2005, Lionsgate acquired UK company Redbus Film Distribution for $35 million and became Lionsgate UK on February 23, 2006.
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group is a production and distribution of Swiss film company, founded in 1928 1 , based in Zurich and chaired by Erwin C. Dietrich 2 .
The production part was founded in 1952 3 , as the Elite Filmproduktion AG .
In 2005, Ascot Elite was in the first place independent distributors in Switzerland.
Vertigo Films is a UK Film and Distribution company founded in 2002 by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. The company’s mission is to create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema and since inception it has produced 28 films and distributed a further 35.
The Films span a range of genres and audience taste and include the box office smash hit Streetdance 3D, the biggest independent UK DVD, smash hit family film Horrid Henry The Movie, audience favourite The Sweeney etc.
In 2013 Vertigo has eight films in production including Pudsey The Movie – a co-production with Simon Cowell’s company Syco, Walking on Sunshine – a feel good musical in partnership with IM Global and Monsters:The Dark Continent from hot new director Tom Green.
BIM Distribuzione Srl is a company distributing the film Italian based in Rome.
Lionsgate (United Kingdom)
StudioCanal Germany
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group
Mars Distribution
Vértigo Films
BIM Distribuzione
The Weinstein Company (TWC) is a multimedia production and distribution company launched in October 2005 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films in 1979. TWC also encompasses Dimension Films, the genre label founded in 1993 by Bob Weinstein. During Harvey and Bob’s tenure at Miramax and TWC, they have received 341 Oscar nominations and won 81 Academy Awards. The Weinstein Co. went back into business with John Carney, paying an estimated $3 million for U.S. rights to the Irish filmmaker's next movie, Sing Street.
The Weinstein Co. is already distributing Carney's movie "Begin Again," which opens June 27 and stars Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo and Adam Levine.
Harvey:
No one captures this story more perfectly or with such honesty than director John Carney in his most recent film Sing Street. Music is the fabric of Carney’s films. First with his incredible film Once, which went on to win an Oscar for best song and became a Broadway hit winning eight Tony Awards, and then again Carney captured the spirit of New York City through film and music in Begin Again. With Sing Street he sums up the dream of a boy, his band, and the girl with warmth, humor, charm and all the awkwardness of being a teenager. Not since John Hughes has this been done so well on screen. I ran to see Pretty In Pink when it came out in the ’80s. I’m sure most people think I only watched John Ford and François Truffaut films, but John Hughes captured the ’80s generation. Molly Ringwald was that girl every boy picked up a guitar or microphone to impress. Lucy Boynton fills Molly’s shoes perfectly in Sing Street. Just as he did with Once and Begin Again, Carney creates magic and triumph — two things that we can all use in these times. Ask anybody who’s seen it, they’ll agree what a terrific movie this is.
So many musicians have fallen in love with the film, from Bono who said, “In truth, most films won’t touch Sing Street’s portrayal of awakening,” to Jay Z and Usher – all loved it. So even though my band never got a record deal, I can’t help but wish that I hung on to that guitar…but I think my mother Miriam would still give me a healthy dose of reality.
LionsGate UK
On October 17, 2005, Lionsgate acquired UK company Redbus Film Distribution for $35 million and became Lionsgate UK on February 23, 2006.
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group is a production and distribution of Swiss film company, founded in 1928 1 , based in Zurich and chaired by Erwin C. Dietrich 2 .
The production part was founded in 1952 3 , as the Elite Filmproduktion AG .
In 2005, Ascot Elite was in the first place independent distributors in Switzerland.
Vertigo Films is a UK Film and Distribution company founded in 2002 by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. The company’s mission is to create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema and since inception it has produced 28 films and distributed a further 35.
The Films span a range of genres and audience taste and include the box office smash hit Streetdance 3D, the biggest independent UK DVD, smash hit family film Horrid Henry The Movie, audience favourite The Sweeney etc.
In 2013 Vertigo has eight films in production including Pudsey The Movie – a co-production with Simon Cowell’s company Syco, Walking on Sunshine – a feel good musical in partnership with IM Global and Monsters:The Dark Continent from hot new director Tom Green.
BIM Distribuzione Srl is a company distributing the film Italian based in Rome.
Marketing
The Posters
The first poster is kind of great and showed up around the time of the film’s debut at Sundance. We see the two leads in a very pop art kind of style, with the tagline laying out the story with “Boy meets girl. Girl unimpressed. Boy starts band.” The whole look and feel of the poster is just great since it works well at evoking the 1980’s setting of the film. For those in the know, Carney’s previous credits are listed here as well.
The Trailers
The first trailer sets up the basic idea of the movie pretty well. We meet Conor just as his parents are transferring him to a Catholic school where, predictably, he has trouble fitting in. When he sees Raphina across the street one day he does what any boy trying to impress a girl does: Lie. In this case he tells her he’s in a band. So to give truth to the lie he enlists his friends to actually form a band. The rest of the trailer shows them all rehearsing, him getting advice from his older brother on how to be cool and what music to like, him continuing to try and woo Raphina and more.
It’s a charming, fun trailer that very much looks like the kind of thing you’d expect from the director of Once and Begin Again, both of which are name-dropped in the trailer. This kind of thing lives or dies on how much audiences connect with the main character, but that doesn’t look like it will be a problem here.
Online and Social
Near as I can tell the only online presence for the movie was a Facebook page that shared trailers, clips and more. There were occasional GIFs of Madonna, Duran Duran and other 80s music icons that were shared to try and set the mood for the movie. That helps to flesh out the page since most of what’s shared is purely promotional, so those GIFs are the only thing that breaks up the content mix at all.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
The TV ad campaign kicked off with a spot that debuted on St. Patrick’s Day and which laid out the story of how Conor wants to start a band to impress a girl in a nice concise manner as it also gave us Carney’s bonafides as a director.
Media and Publicity
Unsurprisingly, Carney has a big part of the publicity push, with stories like this that allowed him to talk about how his own experiences inspired the movie’s story.
Other than that most of the press coverage came as the result of the release of marketing materials and clips. With no big stars and no recognizable names other than Carney’s that’s not terribly surprising.
Overall A new John Carney movie should be greeted with major press push that talks about not only his impact with his previous movies but the latest round of up-and-coming stars he’s working with and more. The press should be frothing at the mouth for this. While yes, many online commentators are certainly anxiously awaiting it and singing its praises from festival appearances, I still feel as though the campaign here is way too subdued.
But what is here is good. The campaign certainly conveys the same attitude as Once, even if the details are different. It’s a coming of age story, something that always plays well with certain audiences, and so the marketing should resonate with them. It’s selling a movie that, like its main character, loves music and what it can do, particularly how it can affect the relationships around us. It’s sweet, it’s personal and it’s got a soundtrack that those of us of a certain age will relate to at the very least.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Release Dates
USA 24 January 2016 (Sundance Film Festival)
Ireland 18 February 2016 (Dublin Film Festival)
USA 11 March 2016 (South by Southwest Film Festival)
Ireland 17 March 2016
USA 15 April 2016 (Nashville Film Festival)
USA 15 April 2016 (limited)
Canada 22 April 2016 (Toronto)
UK 20 May 2016
South Korea 25 May 2016
Germany 26 May 2016
Hong Kong 9 June 2016
Israel 16 June 2016
Portugal 16 June 2016
Taiwan 17 June 2016
Australia 18 June 2016 (Sydney Film Festival)
Thailand 30 June 2016
Japan 9 July 2016
Singapore 28 July 2016
Bosnia and Herzegovina 15 August 2016 (Sarajevo Film Festival)
Hungary 18 August 2016
Greece 1 September 2016
France 6 September 2016 (Deauville Film Festival)
Philippines 14 September 2016
Finland 16 September 2016 (Helsinki International Film Festival)
Mexico 23 September 2016
Spain 30 September 2016
France 26 October 2016
Sweden 7 November 2016 (DVD premiere)
Italy 9 November 2016
Republic of Macedonia 12 November 2016 (Cinedays Film Festival)
Netherlands 17 November 2016
Argentina 18 November 2016 (Mar del Plata Film Festival)
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Music
Writer/director John Carney wanted to find a songwriter early on in the development process
to enable him to bring an authentic but accessible 80s sensibility to the songs he wanted the
band to play. One such songwriter Carney had considered was Gary Clark.
Carney and Clark worked for a solid month before filming, recording the tracks with a studio
band comprised of some of Ireland’s top session musicians. Ironically, because the band in the film has to begin learning to play as a band without the competence of a well-rehearsed
ensemble, the musicians were encouraged to play badly.
For Carney’s Director of Photography Yaron Orbach, the trick was how to incorporate the
musical elements into the narrative and shoot it seamlessly so that the audience was saved the awkward jump from dialogue to singing and music.
For the younger members of the cast, it was an education in historical pop music. Carney
would show the boys videos from the 80s to inform them of the way in which the bands moved on stage and on screen.
to enable him to bring an authentic but accessible 80s sensibility to the songs he wanted the
band to play. One such songwriter Carney had considered was Gary Clark.
Carney and Clark worked for a solid month before filming, recording the tracks with a studio
band comprised of some of Ireland’s top session musicians. Ironically, because the band in the film has to begin learning to play as a band without the competence of a well-rehearsed
ensemble, the musicians were encouraged to play badly.
For Carney’s Director of Photography Yaron Orbach, the trick was how to incorporate the
musical elements into the narrative and shoot it seamlessly so that the audience was saved the awkward jump from dialogue to singing and music.
For the younger members of the cast, it was an education in historical pop music. Carney
would show the boys videos from the 80s to inform them of the way in which the bands moved on stage and on screen.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Location
Locations
Synge Street CBS, Synge Street, Dublin, Ireland
(School exteriors)
Dalkey Island, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
(Location)
The production chose to seek out locations in and around Dublin rather than look to do
extensive builds of interiors in studios. In particular, the buildings of the Synge Street School,
in the eighth district of the city spanning the Liffey (which still operates as a state-run Christian Brothers School) is not much changed since Carney’s days there.
“I would say 50 percent of my job is getting the locations right,” says MacDonald. “If they tell a truth, to me as a designer and as a writer-director, you’re half way there. I had a great
Locations Manager, Eoin Holohan, with whom I worked. I really pushed him because I knew
that there would be locations that were remnants of the 80s in this town.
“For example, Eamon’s house is a good one. As a basis, it had the remnants in a few rooms of insane carpets and wallpapers, which immediately gives you a foundation on which to build.”
The crew shot extensively in the high-walled yards of Synge Street School using the geography of the exteriors to highlight the inner city feel of the school. Synge Street School itself has changed very little since the 80s.
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