I had the "thrill" of collaborating with NEON Entertainment for its adaptation of Stephen King’s The Monkey, creating a candle that embodies the garish & gory atmosphere of this chilling story. As it turned out, my candle was used as the butt of a joke and a jab at A24, a competing independent film company.
When NEON initially reached out, I was floored! We set up a call and the rep that I spoke with was excited about my candles and propositioned me to create a wholesale candle with a custom scent, using dark smoky notes, to represent some firey moments in the film. She went so far as to state that there was a good possibility that I'd get to meet Oz Perkins and that they would like to film my process for ads for the candle. Definitely seemed to good to be true however shortly after I received a legit contract and down payment. I was ridiculously excited as I headed to the lair to create what was sure to be my masterpiece!
I'll fast forward you through the process here. In and around all the work, the NEON rep started asking for nicer glassware (after agreed upon glassware was purchased) and due to fires in LA, asked if I could change the scent to a really gnarly blood and guts scent to represent the gory film. While the glassware stayed as is, I curated a scent with notes of blood, fresh meat, and a little funk that was finally (after many samples) approved by NEON. They bumped up their order number, making it one of my largest wholesale orders ever. An a big wrench in the plans happened when UPS lost my packages of finished candles and I almost didn't make my deadline. Luckily, they turned up and were turned over to NEON. I never did get to meet Oz, but eagerly awaited seeing my candles marketed alongside his film. Boy was I in for a nasty surprise.
A few weeks later, I came across an ad for my candle. It was a great ad, super retro, about how ridiculous it was for a horror film company to market horror candles (big jab at A24) and how NEON had the most disgusting candle you'll find as a counter to their overpriced movie swag. My candle featured front and center. As cool and professional as the advertisement looked, I unfortunately wasn't in on the joke. At no point in the process was I ever made aware that this was the ultimate plan for my candle. I was repeatedly led to believe that it was legit marketing for the film, not a butt of a joke and cheap commentary on a rival.
I was devastated. I reached back out to NEON, letting them know how appalled I was. I got a response but honestly, went right to trash and I have no clue what they said. Ultimately, they bought the candles wholesale so it was their product to use how they saw fit, but to propose it to the creator one way and market it in a completely opposite way felt just super shady and made me feel gross.
So lesson learned. Should another "opportunity" like this come my way, boy do I have a whole new set of questions, parameters, and details that I'm demanding before I even think about taking the project on!
