tv (humans & les revenants)- component 1, section a

Explore how Humans and Les Revenants use marketing and promotional campaigns to maintain both local and global audiences?

humans and les revenants use a range of innovative marketing and promotional campaigns to cover local and global audiences.

(dac)
Definition- marketing is a vital aspect to ensure that media products reach their intended audiences. in order to ensure that this happens, producers are increasingly relying on digital technologies in order to efficiently promote media products both on a local and global level.

 Augment- in this essay, i shall argue that it is possible to ensure both local and global success through the use of digitally convergent advertising and promotional techniques.

Context- Humans is a sci-fi TV show first broadcast in the UK in 2015 on Channel 4. It is an adaptation of the Swedish show Real Humans, although a number of changes were made in order to make the show appeal to a UK market. Les Revenants is a French horror/thriller TV show set in a small village in the French Alps. It relied on Funding from the European Union, and has been successful with its niche/cult audience.


knee jerk reaction:
marketing for humans- unconventional, targeted towards a niche audience


plan:
through the concept of the shows themselves: 
  • British sci-fi with intertextual links to similar shows such as black mirror and doctor who.
  • Les Revenants USP (unique selling point) for international audiences is that it's French. Dark, sexy, edgy, chic...
  • Humans: unconventional, subversive, atypical sci-fi, raises philosophical questions and themes.
  • Hyperreality as a promotional technique.
  • contemporary modern british setting with robots (unlike other typical sci-fi films/ tv shows such as blade runner which is set in the future in a futuristic city)- this gives Humans more uniqueness.
  • persona synthetics "product recall" advert encourages audience involvement (jenkins! shirky!) and helps it to maintain niche audiences, also encourages viral marketing- some audiences may be freaked out by this as they could assume that this website is really selling real robots rather than promoting a TV show.
  • subversive advertising campaign breaks the rules of TV advertising. a diegetic advertisement that explores the themes of the show.
  • socia media
  • synth website (advertising humans)
  • magazine covers- total TV guide, working class audience, niche target audience of nerds and mainstream mass audience.
  • fan made marketing to promote the show.
  • codes and conventions
  • humans is simultaneously targeting a niche and mass audience (its shown on the front cover of total tv guide which usually includes soap operas and other mainstream shows).
  • theorists: 
  • channel 4- horizontal integration, they usually buy out other tv shows (e.g: channel 4 bought bake off from bbc 1)
  • twitter page for humans (it is an example of how humans can maintain an audience as it is global as well as interactive). it adopts the mode of address of persona synthetics, allowing the niche/ cult fandom that the show is targeting to take pleasure from interacting with the diegetic world of the narrative- intertextuality as it is similar to the viral marketing campaign of the blair witch project in 1999.
  • humans campaign relies on digital convergence and it is very atypical 
  • les revenants poster campaign- traditional campaign, posters feature a range of different characters and themes (each poster can appeal to a different target audience).
  • Humans controversial themes and casting: the show humans can be accused of toking as they have included people of different ethnicities as robots (synths are often POC's whereas humans are primarily white)- however, it can be argued that the show is diverse as the main character/ protagonist is an east asian woman (this is rare as east asian females are rarely represented in western tv shows/ movies)- the show is exploring themes of post colonial identities. 
  • Humans has a double mode of address: simultaneously targets two very separate audiences, mainstream and casual audiences. same concept may not apply to les revenants as it is in French which may not appeal to audiences who dislike having to read subtitles.
  • humans: characters that are easily identified with through stereotypes: e.g: teenage daughter in humans- she acts like a typical teenager, always moody, disagree with her parents, angry etc.

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To what extent do humans and les revenants reflect the social historical context of the time they were made, and how audiences respond to them?


Explore how audiences are positioned by the representation of social issues in Humans and Les revenants 
(positioning is to do with shot types- e.g: if producer wants audiences to like a character, they would use close-up shots, positioning the audience right next to the character, implying that the character is comfortable for the audience to be close to).


Plan:

humans:
  • stereotypes that reinforce hegemonic norms- normal typical family in humans, mom, dad and two children a boy and a teenage girl.
  • consent and female autonomy- can anita consent even though she is a robot who is owned by joe?
  • Slavery- fed's branding references both US slavery and the holocaust.
  • Anita kidnaps Sophie from the house, a stranger in the house- reflects a societal fear of 'stranger danger.'
  • moral panic
  • AI and the singularity- the fear of being replaced (digital technology is taking over- people are loosing jobs over machines like in supermarkets where workers are being replaced with self checkout). this can apply for Laura in humans as she is in fear of losing her role as mom to anita who reads to sophie before she goes to sleep.
  • sex and sex robots- what ethical considerations are being brought up? this raises issues of consent and other philosophical issues.
  • sexual objectification- nisca being raped, treated like an object- the rights of machines, the rights of women
  • binary oppositions provoke "black and white" issues that provoke and audience reaction (humans vs synths).
  • henery jenkins- fandom 
  • odi reflects how people with disabilities are treated in real life- hyperreality: odi is broken which makes him more real- he reflects older humans with dementia, humanises him as he is imperfect just like real people.
  • usage of a close up of laura looking closely at anita's face as she is charging- she's questioning her autonomy, looking at her, we can see laura is curious, disgusted and scared. in the scene, there is electronic non diegetic music that keeps getting louder and louder to build tension. this is also highly paradigmatic/ conventional of the sci-fi genre. it is intertextuality. the sci-fi music represents the ideology that robots may take over the world. 
  • laura is over-acting, may be a way to show the difference between humans and robots- humans over exaggerate their feelings more.
  • news report in the last montage- where daughter, matty, is watching a news interview on channel 4 in bed. intertextuality as she is watching it on channel 4 (the show is broadcasted on channel 4)- makes it more realistic, it is hyperreal and emphasises the danger of synths. man says something like "a synth has never harmed a human before"- this is a proairetic code as it is unbelievable and will scare the audience into believing that a synth will harm a human sooner or later- creates more tension.
  • montage at the end- mise-en-scene of little girl being tucked in, scene switches to mise-en-scene of nisca in a brothel wearing underwear (binary opposition). we are positioned with nisca in this scene as she is passive- close ups of her face and eyes as she looks directly into the camera (direct address). the use of this binary opposition, the hard cut from the little girl's bedroom top the dark, red curtained brothel, helps audiences understand both situations more, we are forced to acknowledge that nisca is someone's daughter.
  • audiences can get into discussions on humanity, what is human and what isn't.
Human autonomy: Personal autonomy is the capacity to decide for oneself and pursue a course of action in one's life, often regardless of any particular moral content. (this is what makes humans human).


Les revenants:
  • religious issues- people coming back from the dead/ purgatory
  • sexual objectification
  • sexualisation of minors- sex scene featuring a you girl and boy around 15 years old, teenage sex- about sexual awakening and loss of virginity.
  • themes of immigration- new arrivals to town. 'mass immigration.'
  • Stuart Hall readings

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