Screenwriter and CEO of Build-A-Bear: Sharon Price John talks to The Inside Reel about story approach, identifiable chacters and building community in regards to her new animated holiday film: "Glisten And The Mercy Mission" releasing in Cinemark Theaters.
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [SCREAMING]
00:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04 Where's Marzipan?
00:13 I got to find her.
00:16 I believe.
00:17 I believe I can do this.
00:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:21 [SCREAMING]
00:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:29 Attention, everyone.
00:30 I found someone to help.
00:32 It's my new best friend.
00:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:36 Yo, what's up?
00:38 How you doing?
00:40 Oh.
00:41 That went better than expected.
00:44 I mean, it's always interesting looking
00:46 at how you make sure a brand gets through to your customers,
00:49 but also finding the right way to do so.
00:52 And I think you guys doing what you're doing with Cinemark,
00:55 but also because you're so knowledgeable of the brand
00:59 to be able to bring that into this with animation.
01:03 Could you talk about that process for you
01:05 and what you want to accomplish and what
01:08 you hope you did accomplish?
01:10 Yeah, so some years ago when I started at Build-A-Bear,
01:14 so that'd been in 2013, we realized
01:18 that we have a lot of relationships
01:21 with some of the best in class entertainment companies
01:24 through licensing, and we cherish those relationships.
01:27 But so much of our storytelling was not our story.
01:31 It was someone else's story, which is great.
01:34 But we also felt like that there was an opportunity for us
01:37 to use our vast retail footprint and relationship
01:43 with all of these consumers and the 250 million furry friends
01:47 that we've created over the last 25 years
01:51 to understand that in each one of those cases,
01:56 those are stories.
01:57 Those are characters.
01:59 All those furry friends have names.
02:02 We've created a relationship with millions and millions
02:05 of people based on storytelling and experience and engagement.
02:11 And we're already an entertainment company.
02:14 It's just not in its traditional form.
02:17 So we believed that we could look at the business
02:21 and identify opportunities, whether it
02:24 was a new consumer extension, like with Honey Girls,
02:30 getting a little bit of an older girl engaged
02:32 with using music and dance and competition and things
02:37 like that, or with our Hallmark films,
02:41 where we get moms to think of Build-A-Bear
02:44 and from a top of mind perspective,
02:46 most in the holiday season, or the creation of Glisten
02:49 and the Merry Mission, which we wanted
02:52 to be available for our many guests scattered
02:57 across the globe during one of the most important time
03:00 periods for the toy industry, shopping periods,
03:03 things like that, and provide our guests with a reason
03:07 to want to come in as a family and have an important holiday
03:11 experience, not just find a teddy bear under the tree
03:16 or put a gift card in a stocking.
03:19 Whoa, what's that?
03:21 Come on, let's check it out.
03:26 It's so beautiful.
03:40 Ooh.
03:42 And shiny.
03:43 Marzipan.
03:51 Marzipan.
03:54 In a minute, Mom.
03:57 Huh?
03:58 Wait, what just happened?
04:02 Marzipan.
04:05 Come on, Lula.
04:06 [DOG BARKING]
04:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:11 That meant, well, we're going to need
04:17 to have story around that and character around that.
04:21 And we thought that we would launch it with Reindeer.
04:25 And that this particular storyline that
04:28 helped us create the marketing was
04:31 that the nice list was too long and the reindeer
04:34 wanted to help Santa.
04:36 But the reindeer knew about these other workshops
04:39 because the workshop was max capacity, right?
04:44 And they're like, we'll get Build-A-Bear to help us,
04:47 Build-A-Bear workshop to help us.
04:48 And that first year, we actually changed the Build-A-Bears
04:51 into Santa's workshop.
04:52 We made it look like it was sort of bespoke.
04:55 And people loved it.
04:57 They loved coming in and choosing which reindeer
05:01 through the medallion.
05:02 And then the next year, we brought out Glisten,
05:04 we expanded the story, and we added more of a back story,
05:07 more character arcs, got more involved.
05:09 And this has just become a real part of what
05:13 we do during the holiday.
05:15 So it's the natural extension for us
05:18 to take Glisten and these characters
05:20 that we've created around the traditional reindeer names
05:25 and move it into something more traditional
05:28 entertainment-based.
05:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:31 Huh?
05:33 What's that?
05:36 [GASPS]
05:37 Wait!
05:41 [SNORING]
05:49 Is that you, Sparkle Thingy?
05:51 [SNORING]
05:55 And why do I hear snoring?
05:58 [SCREAMS]
06:02 You're not a sparkle.
06:03 [BARKING]
06:06 You're a bear!
06:12 [ROARING]
06:14 Lula, don't move.
06:19 We don't want to look like prey.
06:22 Not that kind of prey.
06:24 Although, it couldn't hurt.
06:26 [GROWLING]
06:29 It's not working.
06:30 One thing, what you're talking about is really great.
06:33 Is you make it identifiable to anybody.
06:36 Because the thing is, and that's what works within this,
06:39 but also works within how you guys build the brand,
06:41 is that some people think they're Grizzly the Bear.
06:43 Some people think they're Marsupial.
06:45 Some people think they're Donner.
06:46 Some people think they're Cinnaman.
06:49 Or Santa, for that matter.
06:51 Because you talk about that.
06:52 And that's why that thing with the heart,
06:54 I loved how you placed that metaphor of the heart
06:56 inside the film.
06:58 Because the thing is that it's the heart of everybody.
07:00 Whatever teddy bear is their teddy bear.
07:03 Could you talk about that and making it identifiable?
07:06 Yeah, and it's very specific to the child or the person
07:09 who's receiving it.
07:11 Yeah, that was important to us.
07:13 And we really wanted to, one, build a storyline.
07:18 And I believed this was possible,
07:22 that didn't have an overt antagonist.
07:26 That this is not a storyline about what
07:29 I'm supposed to be afraid of.
07:31 This is a storyline about what's possible.
07:33 A storyline about believing.
07:37 And a storyline of seeing yourself
07:39 and maybe parts of yourself in each of these characters.
07:43 Sometimes you're the one that sees the answer,
07:45 and sometimes you're the one that doesn't.
07:47 Sometimes you're the one that wants to push forward
07:49 with new technology.
07:50 You saw the contradiction between the elves wanting
07:54 to do it the old way and the reindeer
07:56 wanting to do it the new way.
07:58 But maybe there's a happy medium,
07:59 and that's where they ended up with solving
08:01 for the teddy bears.
08:03 Sometimes you want to see-- you can see yourself
08:08 in this working mom, Marzipan, who
08:12 gets kind of thrown into a situation that's
08:14 very difficult, and her daughter.
08:16 But you have the sage evergreen character
08:18 that pushes her on what it means to see versus believe.
08:24 It's one of my favorite lines of,
08:26 do you see anything between us right now?
08:28 And she's like, no.
08:29 She's like, well, I do love.
08:31 So you can't see everything.
08:36 Sometimes you have to believe before you can see.
08:39 And that kind of sets up the whole story of ultimately,
08:43 it will be a child that can hold on to that faith even
08:47 in the toughest times, which is a beautiful story.
08:50 But it can challenge an adult to go,
08:53 where did I lose the ability to do that?
08:56 Because we're more likely born with that,
09:00 and we lose it over the course of time.
09:02 But the way we kept moving the storyline forward
09:06 is having these differing constructs
09:10 on the way different characters would react to life just coming
09:16 at them.
09:17 And isn't that the way most of us experience life?
09:23 It's not that there's some big negative thing that's
09:26 brooding over us.
09:27 It's things just happen.
09:30 And how do you come together or not?
09:32 Or how do you think about it in a positive way or not?
09:35 How do you keep believing or not?
09:38 And in this particular case, it took all of those aspects
09:43 to make sure that everybody had a happy holiday at the end.
09:47 Attention, everyone.
09:49 We're a gumdrop behind schedule.
09:51 So we're going to have fun and keep making toys.
09:54 Yay!
09:55 [GASPS]
09:56 What do we do?
09:57 Don't panic.
09:59 Don't panic, everybody.
10:00 Don't panic.
10:02 [SCREAMS]
10:04 Woo-hoo!
10:06 Marzipan thinks she saw Glyphon.
10:09 What's that?
10:11 We've got to launch Santa's sleigh before that storm hits.
10:15 [GASPS]
10:17 Don't suppose you know where to find another flying reindeer?
10:20 Glyphon.
10:21 [SCREAMING]
10:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:27 [GUNSHOTS]
10:30 ♪♪