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Movie Marketing Madness: The Finest Hours

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finest_hours_ver2“Duty” is a frequently misunderstood term. It’s too often used interchangeably with “responsibility” or even “burden” as a way to describe something we don’t really want to do but will grudgingly put on pants and do anyway, but not without a bit of griping. It’s better, though, to understand it as being more synonymous with “vocation,” or the kind of thing we do because it’s a responsibility we’re supposed to execute joyfully as a service to our neighbor, employer or family members. Our duties and vocations define us.

In the new movie The Finest Hours “duty” is front and center. The film tells the true story of what is remembered as the greatest small ship rescue operation in Coast Guard history. During a particularly bad nor’easter that slammed into Cape Cod in 1952. The tanker “Pendleton” was split in two, with most of the crew staying afloat on one half thanks to the leadership of Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck), who took command when the captain was lost. They survived long enough to be rescued by a small craft – too small for all the remaining crew, seemingly – from the local Coast Guard commanded by Bernard Webber (Chris Pine).

The Posters

finest_hoursThe first poster sets up both the scale of the story and the stakes. In the background is a large ship that we can see is splitting in two, dozens of men on the deck waiting for the rescue that’s hopefully coming from the smaller ship in the foreground and a massive storm creating huge waves all around them. But the copy says not all is well as it explains “32 survivors, room for 12,” which isn’t good math. Below the title treatment we’re told this is “Based on the incredible true story.”

The second poster sells a similar angle but zooms in on the action a bit more. The larger ship in this one has already split, half of it moving away in the background as the rescue ship gets men off the other half as the storm swirls around them. This one features a cast list and drops the copy explaining the scale of the rescue operation but retains the note about it being based on a true story.

While the second poster does have the cast list (all-male here, despite a major portion of the story featuring a couple female characters), neither of them actually features the faces or images of that cast. That says the studio is more concerned with selling this as a big-screen epic story and not with trying to tap into the drawing power of any of the members of the cast. Which says something and I think we can all assume rightly what that is.

The Trailers

We immediately meet Pine’s character and his girlfriend in the first trailer before we’re quickly thrown over to the crisis on the shipping vessel. We hear about the massive storm bearing down on the area, something not everyone is a fan of but which is still the crew’s duty. Pine’s girl especially isn’t thrilled and bucks tradition by staying at the Coast Guard station, begging the chief to call the crew back. We see Pine’s team go through one wave and storm surge after another as they try to reach the sinking vessel.

The pacing of this trailer is kind of all over the place and so never really comes together, at least not in my mind. The transitions between trying to sell the big action and the smaller emotional moments are too sudden and to really work. I get what they’re going for here, but I feel like a tighter trailer would have made a cleaner move from establishing the connection with the characters to putting them in situations we’re asked to care about them making it through.

The second trailer takes us immediately to the ship that quickly begins breaking up, with the crew of the ship realizing soon they’re in dire straits. Pine and his crew are sent out and everyone soon sees that the situation is not great and the odds of everyone surviving are even less so.

Honestly, it’s not a whole lot better than the first but for different reasons. This one provides even less emotional hooks on which to hang our caring about the characters’ fates on, instead going right to the spectacle of the accident that drives the story.

Online and Social

The film’s official website is about as barebones as you’re likely to see for an official studio release. There’s a few trailers and other videos, a story synopsis and a cast and crew list and that’s it. No additional sections, just a button to “Get Tickets.”

finest_hours pic 3

The movie had a Facebook page where the studio shared press stories, countdown images and more but as far as I could find that was it in terms of off-domain profiles as well.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

There were a variety of TV spots run. Some were 30 seconds, some 90 but all played more or less like the trailers, showing various amounts of footage but all hitting the same basic idea and focusing on the giant storm faced by all the characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa6da-yU6Qo

While I haven’t seen any of it I’m sure online and outdoor advertising was done as well.

Media and Publicity

Much of the publicity focused on how this was inspired by real events and recounted those events to show just how harrowing the ordeal depicted here was. There was even some press that featured the real people who lived through the events of the story and are still around to share their memories.

finest_hours pic 2

The primary cast made the talk show rounds as well. Most of the rest of the publicity was in the form of exclusive clips seeded out to various media.

Overall

Disney obviously wants us to be swept up in the scale of the rescue operation, heading to the theaters to experience the massive waves the feel the desperation of both the sailors hoping and waiting to be rescued as well as the determination of the Coast Guard operators who are on their way to effect that rescue. This is very (and unfortunately) similar to how WB sold In The Heart Of The Sea a few months ago, and we can see how that turned out.

The problem I’m having with this approach is that there’s very little about the campaign that allows us to form any sort of connection with the people whose story is being told. The trailers aren’t put together well enough to let us feel like these characters are anything more than cardboard cutouts who are there in service to the scale. That’s exemplified by the posters, which don’t even spotlight the cast and only once name them. I’m sure the story itself is fine and there may be a genuinely gripping movie here, but it’s largely not part of the marketing.