Grand Budapest Hotel Research

Questions

What is Indian Paintbrush and who owns it?
Indian Paintbrush is a production company owned by Steven M. Rales, who currently has a net worth of 3.4 billion, and is the 118th richest person in America.
Indian Paintbrush has funded a few films. such as Fantastic Mr Fox, The Darjeeling Limited and of course, the Grand Budapest Hotel.

Which company is Fox Searchlight a subsidiary of?
Fox Searchlight is the child company, along with many others, of the Fox Entertainment Group, who also own 20th Century Television, Fox Sport, and many many more. The overall parent is called 21st Century Fox, which owns then entire Fox Entertainment group, and all their assets, as well as StarTV, Foxtel, and News Corp Australia. A list of all it's assets can be found here. It makes a revenue of $31 billion.

Which type of films do Fox Searchlight distribute?
They produce fairly low budget films in many genres.

Which two countries financed the film?
England and Germany financed this film, it had a budget of £31 million, and make £172.7 million back, over triple it's budget.

What did Anderson use instead of CGI? (computer generated imagery)
Special effects (Not to be confused with Visual Effects) everything in the film was real, apart from that one scene with the green screen. They used props and models in order to do everything in the film, so it's special effects, not visual effects (Visual is CGI explosions and compositing,)

Where did the inspiration for the Hotel come from?
The film was inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig, who was an Australian novice, playwright, journalist and biographer. He became one of the most famous writers in the world at his time. It is based off one of his novels which is about a man named Ralph Fiennes as a concierge who teams up with one of his employees to prove his innocence after he is framed for murder.

Which film festival opened with The Grand Budapest Hotel?
The world premiere of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel was opened on the 64th Berlin International Film Festival in 2014.

Alexanre Desplat wrote the score, which major Hollywood films has he worked on? 
Alexanre Desplat has also worked on other pieces for films, such as the score of Godzilla, Harry Potter, The Golden Compass and Rise of  the Guardians.

How many awards has the film won?
They won allot of awards, as listed below
Best Foreign Film
Grand Jury Prize
Wes Anderson nominated at Berlin International Film Festival
Best Graphics in a TV Spot
Gotham Awards for best film
Hollywood Film Awards for best costumes
And many more...

Initially how many cinemas did the film open in, in the US?
it opened in 4 cinemas in North America, sitting in at number 17 in the box office, and eventually hit number 6 in the box office. Grossing $8.5 million.

How much did it average per cinema? 
*possibly* $11,852 per cinema.

The film was released on Ultraviolet BluRay, what does this enable consumers to do?
It allows consumers to essentially download the film with their ultraviolet code across multiple devices, in Bluray of course.

Which companies do not support Ultraviolet?
Disney did not like it, and instead they decided to make something very similar which ran under their own licences.

What complaints did Ultraviolet encounter when it launched? 
That it is not available worldwide.

The Cast

Edward Norton - Henckels
Wes Anderson - Writer and Director
Owen Wilson - M. Chuck
Ralph Fifnnes - M. Guastave
Jeremy Dawson - Producer
Tony Revolori - Zero
Geff Goldblum - Deputy Kovacs
Tilda Swinton - Madame .D
Saoirse Ronan - Agatha
Willem Dafoe - Jopling
Harvey Keitel - Ludwig
Jason Schwartzman - M. Jean
Bill Murray - M. Ivan
Mathieu Amalric - Serge X
F. Murray Abraham - Mr. Moustafa
Lea Sydoux - Clotilde
Tom Wilkinson - Author
Jude Law - Young Writer
Bob Balaban - M. Martin

Building A Hotel

Where did scouting for a hotel take place?
Centeral Europe

Which location did the production team eventually use?
An empty department store which is located in a small city called Gorlitz

Did they film on location or on a sound stage?
It was all filmed on location

Where were the production offices located?
On the top floor of the hotel

How did they film the 60's and 30's hotel?
They literally just changed the theme of the room, stripped back all the floor and bits of detail and replaced it with older looking things.

Where did inspiration for the hotel's interior come from?
Gathering ideas from existing hotels

How many extras did it take to fill the loby?
150 extra people were needed in order to fill up the lobby.

Marketing Summary

• Andersons World
• They sold additional items on eBay, such as a book, props from the film, and other things that are actually selling out.
• Unique Promotions
• Fox Searchlight is touring a small model of the Grand Budapest Hotel around Hollywood to Berlin that people can see, including a live performance.
• Viral Chow
• Fox Searchlight has included instructions on how to make the little cakes you often see in the film, allot of fans did it and took photos to send back to Fox, who then used them in cooking adverts.
• Young Moonrisers
• Moonrise Kingdom is attracting a younger audience to go and watch the film, Anderson has attracted a whole new generation.
• Universal Access
• It has generated a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, just behind his Fantastic Mr.Fox 

How did Anderson use the QE2 to market the film?
Queen Mary the 2nds 10th anniversary, they went on a very expensive cruise and people could pay £700 to £111,000 to go on the cruise with them.

What connects Prada to the marketing of the film?
They made some props for the film now of which are on display. From the luggage to the little pink boxes, they made most of the props for the film.

Visit this viral website and identify how the films plot is revealed
The website has key bits of information about the film and some of the things that were used. They're kind of giving out hints to what goes on in the film. And additional things such as police reports about specific people in the film.

Opinion

Why would a big Six company be interested in supporting a smaller distribution company like Fox Searchlight?
So the consumer likes that company over the other ones, it's coming from a "trusted" company who consumers like, and so they may go and watch it, resulting in more people going to see it and more money being made on the film. A big six company is reliable, and so the big six company will support a smaller company that they like in order to make more money.


Which audience category best describes The Grand Budapest Hotel (Mainstream, Mainstream plus, officianados, )
Officianandos, you don't see a hype going on about the Grand Budapest Hotel very much, nor do you see it everywhere all the time, it's aimed at a specific audience. People who want to see a good film without the unnecessary use of CGI and explosions and explosions and some explosions. And yet still have it be an amazing film. And you can brag about going to see and act like you're the posher more royal one out of your friends.

Why might the use of Ultraviolet alienate the film's audience?
Because people may not be able to get the ultraviolet from the companies that do not support it. Such as not being able to own a Disney film on ultraviolet.

Why might the use of secret cinema work as viral marketing for the film?
Because it's it's own event, people are going to share it and go on about it because it's so much more different that just going to the cinema and watching it.