Podcast – Madeline Miller on brand partnerships
Australian expat Madeline Miller breaks down the US and Australian screen industries and working on brand partnerships in the latest James Bond film.
Madeline Miller, No Time to Die
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Business affairs and global brand partnerships specialist Madeline Miller started out in the Australian screen industry as an entertainment lawyer and worked at Screen Australia before relocating to the US – a move that’s most recently led to work on the upcoming Bond feature, No Time to Die.
“I started doing things I just hadn’t done before in Australia,” she says of her time in the US. “So there was the… completion guarantor closings, negotiating really top tier talent deals, I was working with the guilds – that comes up a lot… Eventually I went to London and started working on the new James Bond film and became the production attorney on that.”
Throughout the podcast Madeline talks through the differences between the Australian and US screen industries, how she began working for Eon Productions first on the feature film The Rhythm Section and then on No Time to Die, how the brand partnerships for the latest Bond film work as a source of financing and promotion, and gives advice for Australians looking to explore the brand collaboration space, or keen to develop product partnerships for their next project.
The latest Bond film No Time to Die releases in Australian cinemas through Universal Pictures in 2021.
For feedback about this episode, please email [email protected]
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Audio Transcript
Caris Bizzaca [00:00:05] Welcome to the Screen Australia podcast, I'm Caris Bizzaca, a journalist with Screen Australia's online publication Screen News. On this episode of the podcast, we're joined by Madeline Miller, an Australian expat living in the United States who specialises in global brand partnerships and business affairs in the entertainment industry and who most recently worked on the upcoming James Bond feature No Time to Die, which is set to release in Australian cinemas in 2021. Throughout the podcast, Madeline talks through the differences between the Australian and US screen industries, how she found herself working for Eon Productions, first on the feature film The Rhythm Section, and then on No Time to Die, how the brand partnerships for the latest Bond film work as a source of both financing and promotion, and advice for Australians looking to explore the brand collaboration space for their next project. Remember, you can subscribe to the Screen Australia newsletter for the latest updates from the local screen industry, and you can also subscribe to this podcast available through Stitcher, Spotify, iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, but now here's the chat with Madeline Miller. Just to start off with, can you tell me a little bit about your background in the screen industry?
Madeline Miller [00:01:22] Sure, I'm from Melbourne originally, and I had been working as a lawyer for a while, and I really wanted to move into the entertainment space. I got my first real entertainment legal job as Screen Australia, actually. Initially I came in and I was working, there was a games fund so it was a lot of funding for the creative games industry in Australia. Then I did a little bit of work for grants and a few investments into Australian TV content and then a tiny bit of grant work into Australian film and I was there for a couple of years and then I decided that I wanted to try and work in America, but I also wanted to try and get a bit more specialisation. I went to UCLA and I did a Master's in Entertainment Law and that was really cool because you could do subjects that you wouldn't really normally be able to elsewhere at a law school. You could do like film financing and film distribution and I did a subject on the Hollywood Guilds and things like that. I could do a bunch of internships as well, so I interned when I was in LA studying at a couple of production companies and I interned at CBS distribution, television distribution and then after the degree finished, I managed to get a job at a company called IM Global, which initially was a sales company but had branched out into financing and producing feature film as well. I worked there for a bit and I started doing things that I just hadn't done before in Australia so there were the bond closings, the completion guarantor closings, was negotiating really top tier talent deals, I was working with the Guild. It comes up a lot, the Hollywood Guild, a really unique beast. Then after doing a few of those closings, one of them was for a film called The Rhythm Section, which was with the producers of the James Bond franchise and so eventually I went to London and started working on the new James Bond film, and I became the production attorney on that. That was the trajectory I had. I was at Screen Australia and then I was studying and interning and then I guess I was just like a legal/business affairs executive and then I was doing more business affairs work, which is more of the talent negotiations, the director attachments and things like that. Then I suddenly was a production attorney. None of it was really linear, but it all filled in a whole big spectrum of the filmmaking process.
Caris Bizzaca [00:04:09] Definitely. We'll talk about things like the Bond movie shortly, but in terms of that move over to the States, what are some of the biggest things you notice about the Australian screen industry comparatively to the States. You mentioned the guild system over there, obviously, we have guilds here, but are there certain things that jump out at you about differences between the two?
Madeline Miller [00:04:34] I guess the most obvious one is just that you're dealing with a whole different tier of budget, like the money is just not like you would see in Australia. Also, obviously, the Australian film industry is strongly supported via Screen Australia and the State agencies and that federal funding doesn't really exist or government funding doesn't exist in America. It's all a variety of private lending. There are certain tax credits in certain jurisdictions, but it's not as robust in every state, so a lot of it is studio financing or massive MGs from distribution deals if you're lucky enough, from a big studio.
Caris Bizzaca [00:05:17] And MGs are minimum guarantees for anyone that's unaware that's listening. You can go back and listen to our finance plans podcast.
Madeline Miller [00:05:28] Yeah, I'm sure it's been well covered, but yeah, they'll put up a certain amount against the sales or the distribution they have. If it's independent and they don't have a studio attached, you might have pre-sales in certain foreign territories, but if you've got a studio distribution deal, they might just have the whole world and then it will be a flat MG. If you've got Paramount distributing, that's going to be possibly tens of billions of dollars and that's just not heard of in Australia for obvious reasons, it’s a much smaller market. Then you also have a lot of, and again, you could have this in Australia and I didn't actually do a lot of the film financing in Australia, but I've looked at a lot of the finance plans. You'd have a lot of different private lenders in the States and then you've got Ingenious [Media] which will lend, you've got a lot of gap lenders or bridge lenders which will lend certain parts of the production process and they'll lend against certain money, whether there's a tax credit coming in or whether it's an international pre-sale, so the whole ecosystem is just much bigger, more complicated. Not necessarily, independent financing is always complicated, but I think the dollars are bigger and then the Guilds do play a part because there's a lot of things that you have to comply with and adhere to that the Guilds require, which, again, I didn't deal a lot with the Australian Guilds, but it's different, they yield a lot of power in the States and then because I was at Screen Australia and I was dealing with the finances that I've never dealt with, like talent negotiations and doing negotiations in the States is unlike anything else. You might have actually attached key cast and then you might be dealing with the lawyer but to make the deal first, you would probably deal with the agent and or the manager and then the lawyer might come in. There's just a lot of negotiation that goes on and that seems to follow this very bespoke, very industry specific set of rules and formulas and jargon. It's impenetrable until you do it for a while and then you're talking about cash break even plus ten, it's like another language and I'd never, ever experienced that in Australia. It is very different, it's very a world unto itself, actually.
Caris Bizzaca [00:07:52] It sounds like there's a whole process that you have to follow, like when you were talking about talent negotiation then, there's this whole process.
Madeline Miller [00:07:59] You have to know what you're offering and hit all the key points and then depending on what type of deal it is, maybe if you're doing an option purchase for some underlying rights, you might want to make sure the rights you get, you might be thinking ahead for sequels and all different types of rights and then you might be for talent, it depends. It's actually changing too, it's evolving all the time because now you've got Netflix and all the streaming services and they don't have back ends, so the whole profit participation whereby, at a certain point when the financing pool hits, net break even or something, people start to get a percentage of the profits. That's different now with Netflix because those profits would come from theatrical or other ancillary rights. With Netflix, which is one flat fee a lot of the time because it's just going on the streamer, so then profit participation and all that jargon and what they call the recruitment waterfall or the finance waterfall, that's all changed. The streamers are really changing the way the negotiations are run. I've done a few deals with streamers, but then I was working as a production attorney which is a whole different set of skills and requirements. I think that talent and talent employers are probably now looking for different perks for their clients because they're not going to necessarily just get it back end because there's no theatrical, they might be getting more upfront or they might be getting second producing credit or they might be looking at, I’m not even sure, but there will be a whole suite of perks they're looking for, which they have adjusted because I think the tradition model is changing.
Caris Bizzaca [00:09:37] If you're getting that flat fee?
Madeline Miller [00:09:37] Yeah, it's evolving all the time.
Caris Bizzaca [00:09:40] Do you have any tips for Australians who, obviously in the current climate, people are potentially not moving over to the States right now. But just broadly, do you have any tips about making that move over to the States or if people are already in the States, any advice based on the things that you've learnt since being there?
Madeline Miller [00:10:03] I mean, I do get a lot of queries from people that might have a legal or business background wanting to work as a business affairs or legal exec[utive] so I would say, I wouldn't come straight out of law school or business school. I got a job because I was there in L.A. The first thing I'd say is it takes time, so I had a whole year to really be networking and sometimes I was hustling, pounding the street, I was taking all those coffees and I was meeting with people. You never know which tip or which meeting might turn into something. There's a lot of positivity and promises that go on. I think it takes time, but I wouldn't come over without some experience. I had already had two years as a lawyer, so I had some technical skills and then I had worked in the entertainment industry so I had a little bit of an industry knowledge. I had enough to put myself forward but they were treating me like I was straight out of law school, brand new. They put me on the same level as a recently graduated American law student with no experience, so you've got to be prepared to take a step back and not think you're just going to get in straight away.
Caris Bizzaca [00:11:26] And you are learning that whole new process and system.
Madeline Miller [00:11:31] Yeah, like I know a woman here, that came across as a lawyer and now she does sales, which she wanted to do, so you can pivot but it is a language you need to learn. I think that you need to be realistic about what you're going to get to start. The thing is, once you get a job, it's a lot easier, and it's the same everywhere, to get another job. Once you get in somewhere, you can move on, move up pretty quickly. I was a vice president of business affairs within two years. Again, that sounds really impressive, but there's this whole tier of executive vice president, senior vice president, vice president, direct manager, but still, that's a pretty solid mid to upper level and I got that really quickly. I started pretty junior, so you can accelerate more quickly with the experience you've got but you need to be prepared take whatever you can get.
Caris Bizzaca [00:12:24] Yep, for the first roles.
Madeline Miller [00:12:24] Yeah, and then actually the next thing I would say is once you are in and doing that, reputation and the relationships you form and the connections you make via that role will probably get you your next job. I obviously managed to shift to EON Productions, which was the production partner we were working with. Then every time I see something that I might be interested in or you can put the feelers out and then somebody will know somebody that works there and they'll take a call with you so I really think it's a slow burn, but then it starts to pick up pretty quickly. I think probably the first two years are the toughest. I think managing expectations is always, you know Australians are good at that. No Australians tend to come over and think that they're conquer Hollywood in six months. That's a very legal-specific answer. I don't know how it works necessarily if you're a creative. It's probably different. The process is similar, you come over, you try and stay as long as you can. You try and meet as many people as you can. You try and take as many jobs as you can, you try and form as many relationships as you can, because it is a really, really relationship-based industry.
Caris Bizzaca [00:13:35] It's the reputation thing, like you said.
Madeline Miller [00:13:38] Totally, and people want to work with people that they like, so Bond has had a very consistent production team, below-the-line production team for at least the last four or five, so people get repeat work when they start to form relationships and people just like using the people they know.
Caris Bizzaca [00:13:59] Talking about Bond a little bit, so EON productions, you said that you were first working with them on The Rhythm Section, which is directed by Reed Morano, who did Handmaid's Tale as far as I understand?
Madeline Miller [00:14:15] Yes, that's right.
Caris Bizzaca [00:14:16] And then from there, went onto the Bond film. So could you talk through a little bit about the roles that you had on those two projects and what they entailed?
Madeline Miller [00:14:27] Yeah, for The Rhythm Section, I was involved with financing, so it's closing the bond. That was a big difference because we did have a studio deal with Paramount, so there was a large MGM. Yes, it was closing the bond on that and then working with the various lenders and the various lenders' attorneys, the producers, finance people, again, the Guilds. The talent deals, so I was dealing with a lot of the talent lawyers, we had Jude Law, Blake Lively, so negotiating those deals, that was a big thing, and then closing the financing so we could go into production but EON productions was the actual production company who was doing the physical day-to-day production once the bond closed and we were into production and out of the preproduction period.
Caris Bizzaca [00:15:23] And that's Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson's company?
Madeline Miller [00:15:27] That's right and they're the owners and creators of the Bond franchise. Most of the production was done in Europe, so at that point, the company I was at, we were still producers, but our head of production was involved but we were less physical day-to-day producing and we were more like financiers and then overseeing. Producers obviously have lots of different roles and lots of different hats, but we were a physical production company doing the filming. That was my role on that one, and it was more in the preproduction period, and then when I went to London for the James Bond film, they were in the middle of preproduction production but I went just when Danny Boyle left the film. We suddenly halted on preproduction and then very quickly they got another director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, and then we were back into preproduction so there was this period where I was actually doing the legal delivery to Paramount of The Rhythm Section, so that was a completely different thing that I'd never done before. Then we were in production on that and then the preproduction period was obviously pretty intense, as was the production period itself, which is the filming period, that was really long. I mean, I think it was about five or six months. That was really interesting because we were all out at Pinewood Studios, which is the base location when we're in production. We were in the London office for a while, and then we all moved to Pinewood and then then I suddenly was doing all this stuff that I'd never really done before, like location agreements and some clearances and promotional partnership agreements and reviewing charter agreements for helicopters, doing production service agreements with our local production services companies for tax credits. We had one in Norway, we had one in Italy, we had one in Jamaica. We filmed in all those locations, we filmed a bit in Scotland, we obviously filmed in London. I guess the highlight for me was we were dealing with a big French shipping company that owned the port in Jamaica where we wanted to film a key action sequence and so I was flying to Marseille to discuss what ostensibly was the locations agreement to use that port that also became a hybrid promotional partnership agreement because they wanted to be more involved with the film and have more exposure, which is understandable. Then we were negotiating a promotional partnership where they could do certain events and they could get certain entitlements and then they could appear in the film in a certain way. A lot of it was about how they were going to appear in the film, a lot of negotiations about screen time and the different scenes. We had to do this video mockup of how the whole action sequence would look, we had an animated Daniel Craig going through a shipping port. They were watching that and they're really excited about it. I did that and then when we actually wanted to film that sequence, it was the second unit because it was more action. We didn't actually have talent in it. It was stunt people. I flew to Jamaica and spent three days standing on a shipping container and a big ship and a port and just watching sea planes fly over cranes.
Caris Bizzaca [00:18:59] Wow, what an experience. You mentioned promotional partnerships there. Could you talk a little bit about what brand collaborations and promotional partnerships actually are for people that aren't aware?
Madeline Miller [00:19:11] Yeah, sure. There's other franchises out there and newer franchises, obviously, like Disney and Marvel that have a lot of cross promotions, but Bond has quite a unique promotional partnership component, pretty blue chip, it's one of the longest running franchises ever. It's well recognised and it's such a elite and sophisticated IP, so it's quite unusual in that way. It's less for kids, cartoony or action hero-y and so they have long standing partnerships with some really high-profile brands like Heineken and Omega and Bollinger.
Caris Bizzaca [00:19:54] Aston Martin.
Madeline Miller [00:19:55] Aston Martin, yeah, Jaguar, Land Rover, and so a lot of these brands will have ongoing deals for the films and we also brought in new brands to the film but a lot of these are repeat partners, so they will have a particular placement in the film and then they may, the bigger ones or the more longstanding ones, will often do a big promotional campaign in alignment with the film's release. That may incorporate parts of the brand itself so whether it's theme music or talent, like Daniel Craig has the big Heineken ad that comes out, so that's a huge part of, I guess, the marketing for the film. We'll have an agreement with the brands for their placement and then their promotional campaign and then how that's going to be promoted via the channels and then how we're going to cross promote via our own channels on social or whatever. We have our own publicity team and then there's the distributor and then there's the studio, MGM, so all these people are involved in the cross promotion of the film across all these different networks and platforms and events. That was really cool, I'd never done that work before obviously, and don't get a chance to do that a lot. We had the existing prestigious brands that we work with and then there was the brand licensing team that would actively go out and seek new partners to bring into the film and so some of them may just have a placement and then some of them might have a placement and a really big campaign. Some might have a smaller campaign. A lot of them will then - and a lot of the stuff I ended up doing - they might do a product, release a product in the promotional period for the film and that might be the product that appears in the film or it might be a different product that aligned with their brand and the film, so Bollinger might develop a particular bottle or packaging that's going to be released during the promotional period of the film, which is about eight weeks outside of the release date, and then they'll release it within that period. It's not necessarily what appears in the film, but it's aligned with the film. A Jaguar Land Rover launched its new Defender in alignment with the film. There'd be lots of promotional campaigns with lots of products. Some would be doing products outside of the promotional campaign, so normally the No Time to Die which is the new film, products would be released, like I said, during that promotional window, but then other partners or licensees might do a branded, like a 007 with James Bond themed product that would run maybe a year or two years. That's been really interesting and exciting, and that's the work I do now.
Caris Bizzaca [00:22:45] Yeah, brilliant, and obviously that's a huge studio movie and like you said, the dollars that a movie like that is working with comparatively to something in the Australian market can be quite significantly different. But in terms of the application of something like that to an Australian film, for example, I know Ladies in Black, which came out a few years ago in Australia, they definitely did some collaborations with Blue Mountains tourism, for example, I think David Jones as well, and they spoke publicly about how it helped them in terms of financing, exposure, and on that level, could you talk a little bit to how you might see some of these things being applied for Australian content or the benefits that it might be able to have for Australian projects?
Madeline Miller [00:23:48] I think one of the biggest ones you mentioned there is for tourism. We have a deal with the Jamaican tourist board and Visit Britain had a big, until COVID came where now travel is obviously off the table, but they had a huge influencer campaign around the release of the film, which would involve certain landmarks in London that appear in the film and a lot of gaming comes up around that as well, so all of that is low cost, but really useful awareness for the film. I think that tourism boards are probably one of the best ways, but again, that doesn't always work. It works for Bond because it's such a location-based film.
Caris Bizzaca [00:24:35] It has been tailored to the project.
Madeline Miller [00:24:40] Yeah, so if you're setting a film in a particular region like the Blue Mountains, that's a no brainer, if you can get some cross promotion stuff going, that's great. It's great for the area and it's great for the film. More product-wise, I think we're not talking about the days where a packet of cereal would appear on a table in a TV series, and that's like brand placement. I mean, that probably still happens, I don't know, in TV, but what we're looking at now is much more sophisticated and integrated brand collaboration. Bond is the high watermark of how that might work, but for more local productions, I think probably the opportunity lies in, this is not really an answer to your question, but this is a space that I think is really interesting, so advertisers these days or brands, I should say, these days are realising that it's not enough anymore just to sell a product. You've got to sell a story and so they understand that their audiences are becoming more demanding about what a brand's values are, so it's also about identifying the brand with its consumer base's values. That has led to a lot of small story-based advertising. I think once advertising got a bad rap but these days, it's where a lot of really creative and beautiful work is being created. Often, it's part of a much bigger ongoing story so there's a much stronger narrative arc. Nike is doing it with a lot of the Colin Kaepernick stuff, and so I think there's a lot of ability for creatives to work in a more narrative driven space that is brand-oriented and to tell a story. But in terms of how brand collaborations can help the Australian industry, I think it has to feel organic. It has to feel like there's a natural alignment with the product, the creative product, its audience and the brand partner. Like I said, I don't think just placing a cereal packet on the table anymore is going to work, and I don't think opening up a MacBook Air and having the Apple logo is really going to work. There needs to be some synthesis between what story the brand is trying to tell to its audience and what the story of the film or TV or creative piece is. I would say that there's more creativity to be had in branded content these days. I think there's a really interesting development happening with the new generation. Gen Z is the newest generation of consumers or soon-to-be consumers. There's lots of studies and investigations because everyone wants their eyes and it's clear that they are really demanding and require different things from advertising. Because they're the social media generation, they find the crossover between advertising and entertainment to be more organic. They don't have this strict distinction between what is advertising and what is entertainment. They cross over all the time, they're a multi-platform, they're on TikTok, they're on Snapchat, they're on Instagram. They're used to that and their favourite celebrities or favourite personalities will do branded posts, but they're even getting more demanding with that. So once upon a time, a celebrity just had to hold up, say, I love this product. Now they have to integrate that product into a story about them and personalise it and make it feel really authentic. For example, Tan France from Queer Eye, he has a mattress collaboration, but his posts on it are he and his husband, so he's not just doing an ad for a mattress with the mattress, he's with his husband, he's talking about the mattress. He's himself using it as he would in his everyday life, bringing in personal parts of his life like his husband and everyone knows it's him spruiking a mattress, but it's done in a much more conversational, less product-y and more, the word they keep using is organic and authentic way. That kind of storytelling now is becoming really common for Gen Z and they respond to it a lot better. I feel like there's this really interesting shift in how advertising is being done and ads aligning themselves with social issues such as climate change or whatever it might be. As brands move more into the storytelling space, there's going to be this really unique emergence of narrative storytelling that is less clearly advertising, less strictly narrative than we've seen before, and I think it's really good, I think it means there's money to be had and there's creativity to be found. There's also some really good issues-based storytelling that's going to emerge. I mean, yes, it's all to get this Gen Z audience, but I think that Gen Z are demanding and pushing advertisers to come to the table more on those things. It works both ways. That's where the face of, I guess, brand collaborations and product partnerships is going. There's always going to be your big tent poles like Bond and Disney and Marvel that are going to have these huge brand collaborations. There's a lot of creativity now and brands have the money, so there's another source of income for filmmakers and creatives.
Caris Bizzaca [00:30:22] Particularly, as you said, if it is tailored towards like a Gen Z market, you might be seeing more of this stuff pop up on web series' or some of these places where you are having new voices coming through, I suppose.
Madeline Miller [00:30:42] Totally. People are consuming content in a variety of different ways now on a variety of different devices, so I think that there's a lot more opportunity for content to be disseminated. There's going to be a whole variety of formats that are going to shift from that linear traditional theatrical release model.
Caris Bizzaca [00:31:02] Lastly, any general advice? You touched on a couple of things: make sure you think about it being authentic and organic and tailoring it to - if you are going to have any brands - tailoring them to the story that you want to tell, but is there any broad advice that you would have for people that are maybe looking at this space?
Madeline Miller [00:31:27] I don't think there's much to say above and beyond, you can't really be too didactic about how the content creators can do it. I think if you're creating a series and you've got in mind your audience and the issues of your series, or the themes of your series, whatever they might be, or your film, I think probably you need to do your due diligence into the brands you might want to align with and how they're being perceived socially or publicly at the moment, whether they're good fit, because I think audiences, especially younger audiences, will sniff out a bad fit. I don't think you should just take any money that you get, because I think when it's done badly, it's really off-putting. I would engage with a strategist, a creative strategist. I wouldn't try and do it yourself if you're really serious about it, or certain brand licensing people, which is the people we work with and they will listen and interpret and define your product and then they can go out there and find you the partnerships that are most appropriate. We're trying to skew younger with Bond, we're trying to get a younger, more diverse audience, so we're doing big deals now with Urban Outfitters and to try and get the eyeballs that we want to become the next generation of Bond fans and we there's people that have those relationships that can help you identify the best brands, what you want. I think probably working with a brand licensing company is probably a really good idea if you've got a strong IP.
Caris Bizzaca [00:33:01] Okay, great. Well, we'll leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and sharing your experiences.
Madeline Miller [00:33:11] You're welcome, thank you.
Caris Bizzaca [00:33:14] That was Madeline Miller and you'll be able to catch some of those brand partnerships she mentioned when No Time to Die releases in Australian cinemas in 2021. Remember, you can subscribe to the Screen Australia podcast through Stitcher, Spotify and iTunes and if you have any feedback, feel free to email [email protected]. Thanks for listening.