How Flonase Cross-pollinated with 'Bridgerton' Before the Show’s New Season
The butterflies in audiences’ stomachs are intensifying with every next ‘Polin’ edit on TikTok as ‘Bridgerton’’s fanbase prepares for the newest, promisingly-steamy season of the show, this time revolving around Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton’s friends-turned-lovers romance.
But, around this time of the year, it’s not just the butterflies… It’s also the bees. And ants. And pollen. And all sorts of other stuff that frankly, make the ton quite sneezy, itchy and irritable.
So, Shondaland and allergy relief brand Flonase partnered to bring hayfever’s cure to Bridgerton’s universe. With the help of PMA Film & TV, the brand created an entirely new character in Bridgerton’s world - an apothecary, tirelessly working on helping the ton with their runny noses and get ready for regency London’s mating season.
Directly working with the Bridgerton team, PMA fully recreated the Netflix show’s overall aesthetic, while staying true to Flonase’s brand. Mixing up a pharmaceutical brand with a romance-drama set in an imagined regency past sounds like a huge task - and it is. But this is how it was achieved, from the biggest feat - like adding the apothecary to the Bridgerton lore - to the smallest details, such as raiding the show’s endless costume closet.
From PMA Film & TV speak director Tim James Brown, production manager Harry Hardwick, and owner Pip Ayers; to tell us more about the VFX behind the spot are Black Kite’s VFX lead Matt Jackson and colourist Rich Fearon.
LBB> Harry, tell me what the brief for this project was, and how PMA first approached it!
Harry> We were really excited when this brief came in. Shondaland had chosen to partner with Flonase, two high-profile brands who might not be obvious bedfellows but had a clear and common aim - to create a feel-good, pop-culture moment that drew on Shondaland’s reputation for storytelling, and a brand in Flonase that wanted to spread its creative wings.
The brief centred around the fan-coined term ‘Polin’, an amalgamation of Bridgerton characters Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton, and its obvious resonance with ‘pollen’. Buzz was building online around the new season’s focus on their romantic story,
and it was a wave we wanted to ride.
What was unusual about this project was the scope for PMA to join the creative conversation and collaborate in the truest way with brand, agency and director to bring this story to the screen.
Shondaland’s dynamic attitude to co-branded content is incredibly refreshing. The Bridgerton IP is, of course, huge and carefully maintained, but we started a really meaningful dialogue with the show and soon, such was the level of trust that Sandie Bailey (chief innovation and design officer) and Chris Dilorio (chief marketing officer) gave us the keys to their precious world.
Making a commercial that stood on its own feet whilst squarely in the Bridgerton universe was key to our approach. The prospect of blurring the line between this campaign and the show itself - creating a world within a world - felt like a novel way to engage a dedicated audience, and to achieve that authenticity we immediately opened up conversations with the show’s creative teams.
In effect, we were looking to insert brand new elements into this space - a space carefully curated by Shondaland and championed by its loyal fanbase, so we had to get it right.
LBB> How did you manage to replicate ‘Bridgerton’'s vibe and cinematic style so well?
Tim> In terms of the directing approach, from my side it was important that the opening scene reflected the Bridgerton style so the audience knew instantly they were in that world. This is why it was imperative we used a dynamic sweeping crane shot, which we utilised with a supertechno crane.
Subliminally, the editing style also played an important role in the camera working. Most adverts these days have a fast-paced editing style, but the Bridgerton show (if you study it) is more refined and has a slower tempo. This allowed us to adopt and utilise a fluid camera style - shooting longer takes on a dolly and a track.
This camera style and timing also allows viewers to get to know the characters with more intimacy thus setting up the comedic rug-pull which will be even more of a surprise. So, even though this concept was driven by humour, I didn’t want to shoot it in an overtly comedic style. Instead, the humour needed to be clever and subtle, with every frame exuding a distinctive feature film quality with the use of anamorphic lenses heightening the overall cinematic feel.
LBB> And when it comes to the costume design, how did you make sure you stay in line with the unique blend of historically accurate elements and creatively enhanced details/colours that are in the original costume design?
Harry & Pip> We were lucky enough to not only find a wonderful stylist in Emily Wilson, but also to collaborate with the exceptional Bridgerton costume team, and have unprecedented access to the enormous Bridgerton costume archive. The show team were fully present to advise and guide on the costume fittings, ensuring we stayed within the Bridgerton lane, whilst allowing Emily the freedom to just have some fun... which I think she did.
The spot also introduces an apothecary, a character never before seen in the Bridgerton universe. Creating a brand new character required a brand new design. This was as exciting for the show team as it was for Emily to bring to life, and was a really special moment in the process.
LBB> What was the casting for the spot like and what kind of talent were you looking for in order for them to fit in with ‘the ton’?
Tim> Luckily we had top casting agent Belinda Norcliffe on the team, and she was able to cast the net wide, allowing us to find some exceptional talent. The primary casting brief was to find a cast capable of producing understated, natural performances and communicating a lot with the simplest gesture or glance - avoiding 'commedia dell'arte' humour.
However, more importantly, they needed to have the correct body posture, which would reflect the regency period of Bridgerton: a stern, straight spine with shoulders back. An elongated neck with their head held high. A raised chin to accentuate their eye line looking down their noses. All to portray a great sense of nobility and pomposity. I wanted to reflect Bridgerton, but I also wanted to add a comedic crema layer, as we can't resist chuckling at these slightly pompous, above-themselves types who are sneezing and having runny noses.
That classic British stiff-upper-lip attempting to suffer with dignity - the charm and comedy comes from the pre-meet of underplaying it and avoiding any broad, slap-stick performances. In fact, at the castings recalls, we found that the straighter we played it, the funnier it was. This in return gives something new and unexpected to the fans of the Netflix show.
LBB> And how did you cast Lady Whistledown's voice? Were you looking for a perfect match with Julie Andrews?
Harry & Pip> There is, of course, only one Julie Andrews! It was important for us to respect the character that Julie Andrews has developed, a voice the fans recognise and love, so we avoided anything that might be mistaken as an imitation. But there was a balance to strike.
We wanted the gravitas, the tone, the attitude. So we made our narrator just that - she’s a reader of the paper who comments on the story as it unfolds. And borrowing an element of Lady Whistledown’s distinct delivery keeps the experience - we hope - immersive for the audience.
LBB> Tell me more about the locations and what the location scouting for them was like? Was the campaign filmed in Bath?
Harry & Pip> We chose to shoot the street scene on a soundstage in Uxbridge, adapting, re-dressing, and extending part of the Bridgerton build to create the scale and perspective we needed. This was done both in-camera and in post-production. There is no apothecary in the ton, so we worked with the show’s art director to establish and dress this brand new element. Again, something created from scratch, but which had to sit comfortably in this familiar environment. We think it works, and who knows if it will become a feature of the show in seasons to come?!
With hayfever season just around the corner, we had to shoot the exteriors in the first week of March, so we headed to Cape Town to find an English country garden and some reliable sunshine. The local art department in South Africa worked tirelessly to dress the location to a level that was both believably English and in keeping with the heightened Bridgerton aesthetic. So we found a little corner of the ton right there on the Cape, and Bath remained unscathed.
LBB> What went into the character design of the apothecary in order for it to fit in with the Bridgerton world?
Harry & Pip> Injecting a sense of the Flonase brand into an apothecary that sits nicely in the Bridgerton world was an exciting challenge. We subtly introduced the brand’s colour palette into the design of both the apothecary’s costume and some of her equipment: a green feather quill, green liquids and so on - a suggestion of the remedy to come (in 200 years) without stepping out of the world.
An idea that Flonase liked was to introduce the brand identity in an organic way, with the apothecary penning a hand-written version of the iconic Flonase logo as if doodling on a notepad, before cutting to the modern-day logo in all its full colour glory.
LBB> What role did VFX play in this campaign and why was it important for the making of the film?
Matt> A lot was captured in-camera, to which Rich added a fabulous warm grade, making it look sunnier in certain scenes to balance out the whole film. We created the spot’s hero character, a charming CG bumble bee, that swooped from flower to flower leaving a trail of pollen in its wake to be inhaled by the regency gentlefolk. We also worked on digital matte painting set extensions and invisible VFX to ground the shots in the Regency period.
LBB> What were the biggest challenges when it came to the VFX, and how were they overcome?
Matt> Finding exactly the right period architecture references for the digital matte painting was tricky. We iterated multiple versions, using our library of reference material as well as using AI to generate compositions. Once narrowed down and in collaboration with the director, we worked more on these, using more traditional digital matte painting techniques to add the required Regency detail
The most fun part, on the other hand, was to create a CG bumble bee and we all really enjoyed the collaborative aspect of this work.
LBB> What was the process of grading this spot?
Rich> For the grade, Tim wanted to achieve a summery hazy feel whilst also retaining the colours of the character's costume. We carried this look throughout the exterior shots whilst in the apothecary scene, kept it a little darker and more intense.
LBB> What was the most challenging part of creating the campaign? And the most fun?
Harry & Pip> The most challenging part of any brand collaboration is to serve both brands equally, whilst allowing their independent identities to shine. Working with a very modern product and placing it in an historical context throws up as many challenges as it does opportunities, and the most rewarding part of the process was finding the humour and disruption in the space between. It’s been incredibly gratifying to see the reaction online of the Bridgerton faithful to the new elements we have placed in a world they love. They are an exacting crowd, so if the fans are happy and the brand is happy… then we’ve done our job.
