vox lux – Cinematic Slant

Vox Lux follows a young woman named Celeste from her teenage years as an overnight pop sensation through her attempted comeback nearly 20 years later, focusing on three stages of her life and career.

Natalie Portman plays Celeste in her later years, as she attempts to revitalize her career with a new album and tour she hopes will put her back on top. To do so she also has to deal with the years of personal and professional issues that have built up and try to overcome the scandal that derailed her stardom in the first place.

The Posters

Portman is on stage in full makeup and with a microphone attached to her on the first poster, essentially reusing a promotional image for the key art here. Aside from a blurb from an early review there’s nothing but the title and the credits as the studio hopes to make the flashy visual of the Bowie-esque performer the key message conveyed to the audience.

The Trailers

The first trailer starts off with Celeste being interviewed about her new music after what we hear are a rough few years. Throughout the trailer we see her dealing – sometimes well and sometimes not so well – with the trappings of fame, offering an inspirational message to her audience while also falling down from apparent excess. There are plenty of hints at danger offered as masked gunmen walk through a building/home and it’s clear there will be drama in the mother/daughter relationship as well.

That looks incredibly off-kilter and lots of fun. You get some of the story but really what’s being sold here is a look and feel more than anything, all centered around Portman’s performance.

The second trailer, released just a couple weeks ago, shows more of Celeste’s beginnings and the path she took to stardom. She’s shown to be a Madonna-like performer who’s facing a lot of obstacles, some of her own making, as she fights for what she feels is hers.

That trailer served not just to sell the movie but also the original song performed by Sia that’s part of the story. It also shows a bit more of the relationship between Celeste and her manager, played by Jude Law.

Online and Social

All the usual material can be found on NEON’s official website for the movie along with a collection of “Social Assets,” clips and GIFs that can be downloaded and shared elsewhere. There are also links to the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

If there’s been paid promotions done by NEON I haven’t seen them. It’s highly unlikely there’s been nothing done on this front but nothing that’s crossed my radar.

Media and Publicity

The movie was announced as one of those screening at the Venice Film Festival, news that came shortly before a first look at Portman in the movie was released. First look photos came out a bit after that, before the announcement it would screen at the Toronto Film Festival. A short bit of teaser footage featuring Portman was released via Vanity Fair before Venice got underway.

Both festival screenings generated significant positive buzz for the movies, particularly Portman’s performance in it. The actress was interviewed about the logistics of shooting the movie, what she felt was attractive in the role and more around that time.

The reception at Toronto generated some awards speculation while Portman and the rest of the cast talked about the political nature of the story while director Brady Corbet shared what inspired him to make the movie. NEON bought distribution rights during the festival.

The movie was added to the lineup of the Austin Film Festival, where it was programmed as the opening night feature. A screening at AFI Fest was followed by a Q&A where Portman and Corbet talked about the themes of the story and more, including how Corbet compared Celeste to Kanye West.

Portman was the subject of a wide-ranging cover story in Vanity Fair that had her talking about the movie as well as a wealth of other topics, all accompanied by suitably glamorous photos of the actress. She was also interviewed about what drew her to the project and how it fits into her career to date and how the movie allowed her to fulfill a pop star dream while Corbet talked about how casting her really helped bring the story into focus.

Overall

Portman is, of course, the main draw here as she’s the one who has to anchor the story and sell the egotistical singer she plays in some kind of reality. The campaign makes sure to keep her in front of the camera, showing the kind of range she has to draw on to make Celeste a whole person, not just a caricature.

While the story is at times hard to discern from the campaign, that’s actually kind of the point as the confusion that’s created helps to sell it as a strange, otherworldly experience that itself is a metaphor for stardom.

Picking Up The Spare

Borget was profiled and interviewed again about how he wanted the story to reflect the attitudes and personality of a generation. Both he and Portman jointly talked about how the story is about the trappings of modern celebrity.

A week or so after the movie hit theaters a clip of Celeste at a press conference was put out alongside the official music video for Sia’s “Wrapped Up” original song.

Portman has made the media rounds in the weeks following the movie’s released, with appearances on “Late Night” and “The Tonight Show,” often focusing on the song of Sia’s she performed. She and Law also did one of Wired’s fun search-related videos.

There’s been a continued focus on the movie’s soundtrack, with videos for each song released on YouTube and a new short video showing young Celeste performing the song by Sia hitting as well.

The movie has been out now for almost two full months and we’re still talking about Lady Gaga’s performance in A Star Is Born. More broadly, we’re still hearing one or more of the songs she performed for the movie on the radio.

Gaga was a big part of the film’s marketing campaign, as was music as a whole. Early publicity focused on how director Bradley Cooper and the producers filmed in-character performances at a few music festivals over the preceding year and while a few songs were released early, the soundtrack as a whole was considered such a big card to play it wasn’t put out until the movie’s opening weekend.

Soundtracks have been an increasingly prominent part of movie marketing campaigns for a while now, with tie-in albums for Black Panther, Superfly, The Greatest Showman and other recent releases playing large roles in appealing to audiences. Studios want to reach people where they are, regardless of what media they’re consuming, so putting out a soundtrack that’s on-brand and clearly relevant to the film’s subject matter and story makes a lot of sense.

In the wake of A Star Is Born, the tactic seems to be shifting from soundtracks as an album to making it clear to audiences there is one specific song from a popular artist that is new to the film and which, then, makes going to see the movie that much more appealing. This is seen in a number of recent and upcoming campaigns.

Vox Lux – Sia

“Wrapped Up,” the new song performed by Sia debuted in the second trailer for the movie, just released yesterday. NEON didn’t want anyone to miss it, though, and so has been heavily promoting the imminent arrival of both for several days.

On the Basis of Sex – Kesha

The second trailer for the upcoming Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic starring Felicity Huffman doesn’t differ substantially from the first one released months ago except for the fact that it prominently features a new song from Kesha, “Here Comes the Change.”

Bumblebee – Hailee Steinfeld

The actor/singer’s new song “Back to Life” hasn’t appeared in any trailers or TV spots just yet (there’s still time, of course) but it did get its own lyric video earlier this month to make sure fans of hers knew there was more than one way she was involved in the movie.

Green Book – Aloe Blacc

Late in the campaign Universal released a music video for “I Count On Me” from Aloe Blacc, a song about not being knocked down by adversity or conflict but finding the strength within to go on. That’s very relevant to the movie’s story and is a great song to boot.

Dumplin – Dolly Parton

It makes sense, given that the story of the movie involves a character inspired by Parton’s music and life, that she would not only contribute a new song to the film but also be a big part of the pre-release publicity campaign. You don’t find personalities bigger than Parton’s, so she’s certainly getting people talking.

The Grinch – Tyler The Creator

No version of The Grinch’s story is complete without someone doing a version of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” first performed by Thurl Ravenscroft in the 1968 animated special and then by Jim Carrey himself in the 2000 live action film. Bringing the song into the present is popular singer Tyler, The Creator, lending a bit of tough credibility to the venture.

The influx of original songs this late in the year – ones that are being featured in trailers and other videos leading up to release – seems as much about creating another category for the film to contend in come time for awards as it is about turning out audiences. With the exception of “The Grinch” all these are original songs that will be contending for accolades in the coming months.

Other movies aren’t sitting out completely, though, even if they don’t feature much in the way of new material. The cross-media potential of movies like Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, Bohemian Rhapsody and others certainly can’t have been overlooked, each tapping in to the vast catalog of popular artists to help get audiences excited and in theaters.

What’s notable, though, is that this seems to be something studios have just caught on to. Looking back at the late month releases from the last couple years, very few examples of this being overt tactic employed to increase buzz and awards changes present themselves. Mary J. Blige released “Mighty River” for Mudbound, but that’s roughly it.

Based on other recently-adopted marketing trends, it’s one I expect will continue to be used. Studios, including Netflix and Amazon Studios, have embraced various aspects of the content marketing ethos in recent years, releasing a steady stream of interviews, featurettes and other material prior to release along with trailers and at the same time talent is engaged in press interviews.

Original songs are part of that. They provide another opportunity for conversations about the movie and have the added benefit of often appealing to different segments of the audience. And if they have some potential to raise the movie’s profile with an awards win, so much the better.