Transmedia Strategies To Make Your Film Successful

When you produce your film you have won 50% of the battle, the rest of  it depends on how you present it to the audience.

I have 12 years experience in film marketing, marketing and digital marketing processes such as SEO, social media marketing, brand awareness, brand recognition, video and film creation and advertising. I have seen a lot of film projects and many of these quality short and feature films lack a proper transmedia strategy. Here I am sharing some secret recipes that can help you make your film successful.  

Transmedia is a dynamic approach to presenting a single narrative to target audiences in a way that is reinforced through an assortment of media for maximum impact. The ultimate goal of transmedia is to saturate its target audience with captivating narratives that are conveyed through an assortment of media outlets while utilizing an extensive variety of formats. In the bid to engross audiences optimally, you should have a singular narrative which should be delivered through a variety of media outlets. There are  important components that enable transmedia to transform film marketing while ensuring heightened avenue for involvement. Major player film studios and film institutes are eager to put their money and support behind transmedia storytelling.

Numerous brands have made committed efforts to unify their narrative with outbound marketing and purchase of numerous media space. However, there is an accelerated inclination towards innovations that enables clients to disregard various ads with tremendous convenience.

There has been a lot of emphasis on content marketing for some time now. The Internet is expected to enlarge significantly in the coming years which will make its unremittingly growing content mere clatter. It becomes imperative at this junction to explore how marketers get across to their audiences in a very saturated terrain. Transmedia is an innovative approach to marketing that captivates your intended audiences via a blend of narratives.  It’s already being speculated that transmedia would become the leading form of online marketing. For an adequate insight into what transmedia is all about, it simply offers unified and consistent message to clients via an extensive variety of media platforms in a way that is unavoidable.

Transmedia is aimed at offering a united narrative on a variety of media outlets. In its most basic form, a fantastic example can be an adaptation. Even though this is referred to as a narrative system by certain groups, it is worth mentioning that it is problematic to merely adapt a novel into a movie when effective promotions on a variety of social networks and avenues. However there have been media companies who were able to get the message across the internet through transmedia marketing. Offering a narrative on numerous platforms is designed to give the people diverse participation and engagement in a form of storytelling. An illustration would be to encounter the same narrative in a novel, in a movie, in a promotional message or encounter the same narrative in all avenues. Ultimately, a formidable transmedia storytelling and message will advance the concept of the narrative intensely; granting target market a heightened encounter that surpasses what is obtainable if they encounter the narrative or message from just one avenue.

An attempt to give a succinct description for transmedia is quite complicated because it is a freshly introduced concept that concerns the operations of making, marketing and circulating entertainment. In fact, Transmedia was nonexistent before the internet. When you consider the fact that the internet has not been around for a long time, you can begin to understand that Transmedia is indeed a very innovative practice.

Many tools that are utilized by authors, filmmakers and corporations have only been available in a short amount of time. It becomes clear that the scope of transmedia cannot be completely explained nor can its application be fully estimated. The framework and boundaries to the application of Transmedia are currently being outlined by numerous experts in the terrain. It is made known by Henry Jenkins that there are 7 guidelines of transmedia.

• Spreadability vs. Drillability
• Continuity vs. Multiplicity
• Immersion vs. Extraction
• World Building 
• Seriality
• Subjectivity
• Performance

Owing to the fact that it is relatively convenient to offer a narrative using adaption in one medium, adaptation sits at the core of transmedia narrations. Most times, the way in which a narrative is offered to the public would determine how it would be recognized.

When trying to create a formidably impactful transmedia, it is expected that the person who is attempting this feat is an expert in all of the channels required. It becomes imperative for the enterprise to harmonize professionals from various creative processes and mediums to communicate in a cohesive way. The absence of an inclusive approach will make it impossible to implement a successful transmedia production. 

There are five important elements that judges in film festivals , film institutes , film funding and Oscars look for: 

•   The Story’s Originality: It has to communicate something potent and human. Did you know why the majority of executive producers and literary managers who work at major player film studios accept scripts based on established IP? Because it is a safe bet. When you give them an original script, they come up with all kinds of excuses to reject your script.  Why? Because every production company has a couple of very specific shape of puzzle pieces they are looking to fit, if what you’re pitching doesn’t fit exact those pieces, it’s a NO.  Netflix is one of those rare companies that understands what sells and what doesn’t. They have a great marketing strategy, audience evaluation and capturing subscribers. They see a good story and go for it. This is why they are the most successful company and keep adding more value to their platform by using an effective transmedia strategy.
• Worth Chasing:  The story should have something that gives audience an excuse to keep guessing what’s going to happen next. The process of traversing one media platform to the next is an interactive one, so you’d better make this worthwhile for your audience.
• Characters need to be compelling: Good stories are marked by characters that yearn, struggle, triumph or face defeat. Transmedia stories are stories first. For some strange reason an inordinate amount of native transmedia narratives that have hit the public eye in the past year have been about bad guys: murders,  slackers, and (weirdly) anti-technologists! Hook me with a good character that I actually like or at least identify with, and I’ll follow her anywhere. 
• Self-contained but additive stories: The most brilliantly executed transmedia stories are also ones in which you can enter the narrative from any of the media the piece was designed to include. So if I’m introduced to your story through a comic book, I’ll get a fairly complete experience, but then I’m led to an app that shows me a different aspect of the story that is in itself complete, but also significantly increases my appreciation for the narrative and the overall story world. Then, maybe, I’m led to a short film that actually shifts my perspective or interpretation of some of the characters or the entire work. 
• Scatter your stories across different media: As a filmmaker you should consider the features and strengths of the platform, and design the expression of that aspect of the narrative to take best advantage of them. 

Case Study

The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Devil Inside (2012). On average, 7 in 10 feature films lose money; to ‘break even’, the average feature film needs to make a 373% return on investment (RoI). Yet The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Devil Inside (2012) not only ‘broke even’ (>373% return), they made a 41,383% and 9,966% RoI respectively. In theatrical cinema release, The Blair Witch Project made $248,300,000 (413 times its production budget), and The Devil Inside made $99,661,944 (99 times its production budget). Of the Top 20 Return on Investment feature films of the past 70 years, these two films are the most notable for their transmedia launch components. 

Conclusion:

When trying to implement an effective transmedia system, it is expected that every creative facet as well as the process of corporate dimension which includes administration, promotions, and circulations is learned by the individual or it becomes impossible to create a unified narrative that captivates the intended market at a consistent intensity. As an indie filmmaker you have the tools to promote your film online. A good film marketing can be done on low budget. Many indie filmmakers should set aside more than half of their budget on film marketing. Just making a film is not enough you have to create an excellent transmedia strategy in order to get more participants aka audiences for your film.