Rio the Movie

Blame it on Rio?

The production house, Blue Sky Studios, is a wholly-owned division of Twentieth Century Fox, and works only on full-length feature films. In a production this big, fully half of Blue Sky’s staff of 800 is involved, and producer Bruce Anderson made sure the right people were on this job doing the right thing at the right time.

This film was created by director Carlos Saldanha, a native Brazilian and a birder whose love for his homeland inspired him to come up with a project to showcase his country’s beauty, natural history and culture. The result is a wonderful compendium of color, movement, music and sound that will make you feel like you are there. The actors and musicians that give this film its life are all A-list, including George Lopez, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Sergio Mendez, Jamie Foxx, Carlinhos Brown and many others.

Each of the actors was videotaped reading and acting out their part to help the animators capture the essence of the character. The studio brought in live birds so the animators could study the characteristics of each species. Ornithologists made certain that each individual species was accurately depicted so that a field birder could immediately identify it, and they ensured the bird was shown in a natural position, in its normal habitat, and with other birds with which it would normally be seen.  The Red-crested Cardinal, for instance, and the Keel-billed Toucan are instantly recognizable and fit well into their specific scenes.

The ninety minutes or so of final screen time is the work of 70 or 80 animators each of whom produced about 75 finished frames per week, which translates to just a few moments on the screen. When we asked chief animator Lluis Llobera how much work he got done in a typical work week, his tongue-in-cheek reply was “about three or four seconds”.

This is a film that can impact your store in a way you won’t soon forget. And it’s a good evening out for the family.
For those with a creative intuition there can be some cross-promotional possibilities here, too. Perhaps your local theater will be interested in working with you to promote the film at their theater through your store? Maybe they’ll supply you with a few free tickets for an in-store promotion; perhaps you could offer a coupon for a free seed sample, or sponsor a $2 opening night ticket discount. Or tie in to the theme by creating your own Angry Birds game – have customers toss an Angry Bird plush toy into a bucket; depending on which bucket the toy lands in, the customer gets a free seed or suet sample. That would make a great tie-in with the very popular iPhone game Angry Birds. A special version of the game may be available to download when the film comes out. The birds this time will be based on the characters in the movie. And plush toys will also be available as a tie-in to get kids interested in birding. If you sell shade-grown coffee, hang a sign that tells how that product benefits the birds found in Rio, as well as many of our seasonal migrants. There are some really exciting twists to be explored that could help get your store mentioned in the local news.