During the research and planning phase of the project, I researched media audiences, and brainstormed to form a profile of the way I think as a member of the audience.
Audiences———————————-
From the Target Audience post: Nemor contains portrayals of violence. For that reason, the rating will be PG-13 or above, and the target audience will be teenagers or older. This is in order to prevent children from imitating the violent behaviour.
Target Audience for Nemor: Young adults and Older teens, aged over 13, who are fans of paranormal horror media, and/or interactive mystery-solving media products.
How does Nemor engage with audiences?
From the Plot & Story post: Stuart hall’s reception theory states that active viewers often view media through the lens of their own experiences and social contexts, that media is ‘encoded’ by media creators and ‘decoded’ by the consumers. If Nemor was a full length movie, all the “owners” of the deck and their experiences with the curse will have seemingly paranormal, terrifying experiences (denotation) that represent real-life issues the characters dealt with (connotation), that will have to be ‘decoded’ by the audience.
Clay shirky stated that audiences are now active consumers of media, due to the internet and modern technology. Audiences wish to ‘speak back’ to the media through interactive means. This is why video games are so popular. Nemor is a paranormal mystery film, and explanations will be kept to a minimum in the film opening and details will be revealed slowly towards the end of the film in order to allow the audience to piece together the implied meanings and the dilemmas as the film progresses. A similar media that uses this technique is The Magnus Archives, a mystery/paranormal/horror fiction story podcast.
In the final product, the story unfolds in such a way that not much information is revealed, yet enough to create intrigue and keep an audience engaged, invested in finding out more about the story.
In the future, I would focus on making the protagonist more relatable, and with clearer motivations and struggles, in order to allow the audience to immediately connect with the character, and become more emotionally engaged with the story.
Distribution————————————-
How would Nemor be distributed as a real media text?
From the Target Audience Interviews post: From the results of this interview, we found that the most common scenario in which a movie from our genre is watched is with a larger group of people, and each member of the audience’s personal preference is not extremely relevant. We also concluded that the best way to market Nemor to our target audience would be using social media ads, and influencers to review the film, however more of the budget should be allocated to making an appealing cover image and trailer for the film, as many people tend to completely omit reviews. Furthermore, people generally enjoy movies that require some decoding from the audience to understand, so in that sense our film would be well-received. A cinema release would also benefit our film.
The best distribution strategy for Nemor would be a theatrical release, followed by it being made available on streaming platforms, such as Netflix.
My team and I would work together to create a low-cost social media marketing plan, attempting to generate a buzz around the movie, and build anticipation for the release.
Then, we would synergise with a likeminded film distribution company such as A24, in order to be able to effectively release the film. After everything is ready, Nemor would release in theatres, creating revenue and growing the audience and hype around it.
After the film is no longer available in theatres, it would be added to a streaming platform, in order to maximise the potential audience and make watching it an accessible experience, while also lengthening it’s life cycle and allowing it more time to make a cultural impact.
Finally, we would enquire about getting reviews from popular film critics, and reach out to influencers, as they can reach our target audience (older teens and young adults) in order to further promote Nemor, and additionally, continue to engage with the audience through social media, building a loyal fandom that will support our next projects, and if the film becomes especially successful, perhaps even start working on a sequel.
