ICG Publicists Guild Awards Co-Chairs on the Power of PR: “You Can Really Think Out of the Box”

The International Cinematographers Guild (Local 600)’s Publicists Awards will celebrate its 60th annual ceremony March 10, with Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson set to receive the Television Showperson of the Year award. Additionally, the producing team behind Top Gun: Maverick — Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, David Ellison and Christopher McQuarrie — will receive the Motion Picture Showpersons of the Year honor.

“Quinta Brunson is the definition of [a showperson],” says Tim Menke, international theatrical publicist at Paramount and a co-chair of the ICG Publicists Awards. “She created [Abbott Elementary], she produces, she acts, she writes. She does it all.” The ABC comedy also is among the nominees for best television publicity campaign, joined by Ghosts, Prey, RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars (“They reinvented — they had drag queens on NASDAQ ringing the stock bell,” says Menke) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

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Adds Menke of Top Gun: Maverick: “Our industry was at a critical moment in terms of the pandemic — were people ever going to go back to the theater? Top Gun came out in May of last year. If you make it, they will come. And they came in droves.” The Cruise vehicle is nominated alongside Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Nope and The Woman King for the award for motion picture publicity campaign.

A film’s achievement in a publicity campaign is not necessarily congruent with its Oscar ambitions — for instance, Spider Man: Far From Home took the top motion picture award last year but failed to land an Oscar nom. Publicists present their film campaign before fellow guild members, who then vote on the one that “works the hardest to get the most eyeballs, people in the seats, to the theater,” says Sheryl Main, unit publicist and co-chair of the ceremony. To be eligible, the campaign must have been conducted by a guild member.

Over the years, Main and Menke have worked on some of the most iconic films ever released, including, for Menke, Titanic. But first, he handled another film featuring a Titanic star: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. “I could not have loved that movie any better,” says Menke. “At that time, no one really knew Leonardo DiCaprio. There was a lot of elbow grease in terms of getting the film in front of press.”

Menke recalls a completely different attitude toward the 1998 Oscar best picture winner, which turned DiCaprio from an up-and-comer into a leading man. “I was too busy answering the phone, as opposed to making the call,” he says. “Titanic was scheduled to come out in the summer. But it got delayed to December, and everyone was nervous [that] something’s wrong. Then, wham, they saw the movie.”

Meanwhile, Main’s work as a unit publicist means she collaborates with almost all of the studios, as opposed to being married to just one. “I help create the assets that the studios and filmmakers use to promote the film — the behind-the-scenes footage,” she says. “We manage the unit photographer, we liaison with press for set visits. We find ways to create important assets that you can only create when you’re actually filming.” This means, come awards time, it’s not just best campaign and publicist of the year being handed out, though those categories are certainly highly esteemed. The awards also honor excellence in still photography, press and career achievement.

Social media has changed the way the publicity industry works, says Main. “It’s brought a lot of creativity to the party. You can really think out of the box. It’s just a different reach.” Few better examples exist of social media’s campaigning impact than actress Andrea Riseborough’s surprise Oscar nom for To Leslie, which followed a ferocious celebrity word-of-mouth push during Academy voting. “Having seen the movie, I just think there is no question that it is so worthy — a tour de force performance,” Menke says. “You cannot watch it and say that it wasn’t deserved.”

For Main, the ICG awards represent a unique moment for a group of people often unsung for their hard work: “We publicists are usually behind the scenes,” she says. “But this is a time when everybody shows up: Yep, we’re publicists. Here we are.”

This story first appeared in the March 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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