Les Revenants - Audience, Canal+

Les Revenants - Audience, Canal+

Media industries are based around profit and power (Curran and Seaton).

The trailer expertly targets a mainstream audience by presenting a misleading representation of an experimental TV series, it looks exciting and fast-paced which hooks the audience.

It is attracting a cult/niche audience - Mogwai is a cult band.

• Jenkins - Fandom theory - Buying merchandise allows audiences to become active users of a media product, and allows them to communicate their love of the show to other cult audience members.
• Audiences can actively participate in media products.
• Hall - Reception theory - Preferred reading.

What makes Les Revenants a cult show?

• Hermenutic codes, how long ago was the accident and where is everybody? With these codes it highlights the genre of mystery.
• Preferred reading are audiences who like mystery, many people don't know what is happening, they will want to watch and solve this.
• It is a cold opening.
• It deliberately and constructs a niche and cult audience.
• There is intense opening music low key lighting presents how dismal it is and not easy to watch, it is an intimidating series and many audiences will have to be in a certain mood.
• Long shot of the bus falling, we don't see any action and is a slow paced mystery. The genres of it are atypical.
• Metaphorical imagery of the framed butterfly coming to life, foreshadowing/proairetic codes - the symbolic function of the butterfly is to inform the audience about themes of life and death.
• Tracking shot of the butterfly breaking free in slow motion - dramatic.
• Opens with an upsetting scene, a bus crashing and screams, some viewers may find it disturbing and want to turn it off.
• Other genres: Magical Realist, New French Extreme.

Canal+

• Canal+ are the channel who produced and distributed Les Revenants in 2012.
• Canal+ is a French Premium Television Channel established in 1984.
• Broadcast several kinds of programming, mostly encrypted but also some are unencrypted which is free.
• There are no advertising breaks.
• No dubbed films or series, but includes subtitles in French.
• Available on DTT, Satellite, IPTV and Cable.
• Owned by Vivendi, a large French conglomerates - vertically integrated.
• It is a large channel.
• Their ideology/brand identity is based on the idea of quality.
• Promotional poster - It is sophisticated, Adele is looking at a reflection in the water with Simon holding up a black rose 'The past has decided to resurface', they are wearing wedding attire. 'The new series from Canal+' top right, bottom right 'Canal+ Original creators'. Quality channel, quality promotional poster and quality programme.

Les Revenants is a cult show targeting a cult audience. However, arguably, it can only do so through the ownership, being owned by an enormous vertically integrated conglomerate.

Les Revenants - Soundtrack, Marketing, Fans.

Les Revenants - Mogwai, Marketing, Fans

• Mogwai - Soundtrack creators of Les Revenants
• Alternative/ Experimental Rock band
• 'Mogwai' name references the film 'Gremlins'.
• There are no vocals.
• Instrumental Rock.
• Large niche audience/ cult following.
• Mogwai are a Glaswegian Alternative Rock band with a huge cult following around the world.
• People who like this band will like the show, helps target a pre existing audience.
• Style of music fits with the show.
• They are not hegemonically attractive and are not known for being exciting for performance apart from playing.
• Introduces Mogwai to new audiences. Media synergy, benefits both the band and Les Revenants.
• It is unconventional as the series doesn't have a composer but a band.

DVD Marketing to an English Speaking Audience: How is Les Revenants marketed to an international audience?

• It features drama, horror and suspense. The horror genre of the trailer includes the generic paradigms for example, the music is suspenseful and the bus crashing you hear diegetic sounds of screams and the scene flickers in sound and visuals. Suggests it is action and mystery. The series isn't in the action genre.
• It includes reviews of The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. British newspapers, newspapers are fairly respected for reviews.
• It includes subtitles.
• Curran and Seaton - Every media industry must minimise risk and maximise profit. In doing so, there is a complex balance between 'art' and 'commerce'.
• Les Revenants is a risk to finance. It is a mid-budget show.
• Marketing is the act of selling a media product.
• Montage - cuts from biggest and memorable scenes from the series to sell it, making it more exciting than it potentially is.
• The trailer is misleading, it seems fast-paced than it really is.
• Allegory of life and death, death is a universal experience.
• Direct mode of address - 'Your deceased loved ones are back'.

Jenkins - Fan theory

• Interact with the media more than others.
• Engage actively with the media, e.g, merchandise, forums.
• Les Revenants relies on fandoms in order to sell its products, they are walking advertisements.

Fan made merchandise, soundtrack merch, fan forums. A free promotion for producers.

Les Revenants - Theory

Les Revenants - Theory

• Niche Appeal.
• When exported it will still have a niche appeal.
• There are controversial themes of sex and death.

• In the final scene, it is suggested that Camille and Léna are connected some how.
• Camille is seen losing her innocence.
• Les petit mort - The little death.
• Les Revenants is about the interelationship between sex and death.
• It is a highly unconventional horror series but a conventional of the genre, drama and mystery.
• Conventional themes that could attract a mass audience -
• The actors may be recognisable to a French audience.
• Violence.
• Hegemonically conventionally attractive characters.
• The themes of family.
• Range of different characters, relating to different audiences.
• Many people can relate to losing a loved one.
• Zombie genre.
• Drama between characters - binary oppositions.
• Setting of the series is aesthetic, a small village in the Alps.
• Partly funded by the French Alps tourist board.

Les Revenants has the potential to attract a larger audience.

Theory - Livingstone and Lunt - Regulation - What regulatory factors potentially affect Les Revenants?

• Violence - Woman who gets stabbed in the underpath, the audience sees the the stabbing up close and the wound, it is a graphic depiction. Potentially relatable - walking alone and night and the potential dangers of it.
• Sex - The last scene with Le'na who has sex, however it doesn't show any nudity. The characters having sex are underage.
• Strong language - Scene of Simon and Le'na walking home, she calls him a 'dickhead'.
• The French regulation board - Commission de classification cinématographique - Commision for Film Classification. CNC.
• There is U, !, -12, -16, -18.
• British classification - 15.

Reception theory - Hall - negotiated reading - possible to enjoy this show not through the themes, or mystery but through the soundtrack.

    Mogwai compossed the music and soundtrack.

    The prefered reading is someone who likes the genre and mystery.

    The oppositional reading would be an audience who does not like the mysterious aspect of     the series.

Genre theory - Neale - Repetition of generic conventions.

Key example is of something that differentiates the amount of unanswered questions.

Camille - a completely atypical monster, although technically a zombie, she is unconventional in a sense that she doesn't look or act like it.

Feminist theory - hooks - Julie is not a stereotypical and hegemonic representation of a woman as she is not wearing anything sexualised or wearing makeup.

Les Revenants - Meanings and Mini Mock

Les Revenants - Meanings and Mini Mock

• Les Revenants is an allegory of the inevitability of death.
• It has highly uncommercial themes and ideologies.

• In the two scenes of Camille and Julie coming home.
• Julie subverts hegemonic expectations of how women should look and behave
• There are a range of different characters because everyone deals with grief differently.
• Julie in a later episode we find out has been assulted, this presents to the audience with a complicated and hard to decode set of ideologies.
• It helps to gain a wider viewership with the range of characters.
• E.g. Camille appeals to teenage girls.

Scene: Simon and Léna goes home

How does this scene create multiple meanings for different audiences?

In what ways are men and women represented in this scene?

• Low key lighting - symbolises the emotions of the characters.
• The underpath tunnel, concrete and dark - connotations of crime, this is further anchored and reinforced by the dog barking.
• Music - hegemonic generic paradigm of genre, low and eerie.
• Generic paradigm of horror when Simon tries to get into the house, in the mirror which the woman (Adele) (long take shot) can see him in the refelction it is dark, mirror is symbolic of a character reflecting on themselves and she is presented as a vulnerable and weak woman with only a night dress - she is sexualised.
• Binary opposition of men and women of Simon and Léna.
• Atypical when Le'na she tries to pick up Simon in the bar, she then shouts at Simon being aggressive calling him a 'dickhead'.
• Simon - Stereotypical representation of men, he is aggressive when he is banging on the door and shouting. Conforms to hegemonic heterosexual relationship norms - men are angry and aggressive. He is hegemonically attractive 
• Typically sexually active female characters in horror films are killed, when Léna goes off with Simon, nothing bad happens to her. Atypical.
• Escapism to the audience who are younger - we expect these two characters walking home to get together but then we see them going their seperate ways.
• Léna - States she basically lives in the pub, picking up men.
• Adele - Stereotypical hegemonic representation of women in horror - wearing a white dress with low key lighting accentuating her features, she is seen as vulnerable in the scene and starts screaming and crying when Simon comes home.
• Simon is wearing a nice suit - hermenutic code - did he die on his wedding?
• Polysemic interpretations - different audiences may have different interpretations of the meanings of the scene.

''In the 21st century, it is essential for TV shows to offer their audiences multiple meanings'' - evaluate this claim with reference to Les Revenants.

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Les Revenants is a French Television series in the horror genre produced by Canal+ for niche audiences with the main narrative of people from the dead coming back to life. An audience is a group of people in which a media text targets, however there are different types of audiences who consume media such as Hall's Reception theory, some audiences are negotiated. I believe it is therefore essential for TV shows to offer multiple meanings.

One way Les Revenants uses multiple meanings is seen in the scene where both Simon and Léna are going home, this uses polysemy when the audience expects both of these characters to get together but then go their seperate ways, this reflects the genre of drama as both characters are cold to eachother creating a binary opposition with when Simon goes home to see Adele and is a generic paradigm to horror with mise-en-scene of a mid shot of Adele looking in her reflection and is hegemonic stereotype of a 'horror girl' as she is vulnerable, she can see Simon admist the night setting with lowkey lighting the audience again suspects her to not be safe as she screams and cries (diegetic) when he knocks on the door aggresssively.This leaves the audience with multiple meanings as a situation leads to another.

Another way in which Les Revenants do this is when Camille comes home, we see a polysemy between Clare and Camille living in seperate scenes. The mother is living in a generic paradigm of a horror seen in the mise-en-scene, with a tracking shot, the audience is positioned with her, hearing noises downstairs in the night setting all alone sets up a scene where the audience is expecting something terrible to happen. We also have a tracking shot of Camille walking back home creating the genre of mystery (Semantics) a hermenutic code to the audience as we have earler seen her die in a crash. We then see the two genres cross over into hybridity when Clare sees Camille, leaving the audience with multiple meanings.

In conclusion Les Revenants is an example of a TV show which creates multiple meanings, therefore I agree with this claim, as audiences can relate to different meanings in a polysemic media product and can attract a wider audience and negotiated reading.

Les Revenants - Audience

 

Audience

• Released on 26 November 2012 on Canal+.
• UK release - 9 June 2013 on Channel 4
• 2 Series, 8 episodes each.
• Based on the French film 'They Came Back' (Les Revenants). Directed by Robin Campillo 2004.
• Created by Fabrice Gobert.

• Humans was more comercially successful because it was hosted in more countries.
• Les Revenants was distributed in less ways compared to Humans.
• It is in French, other language speaking countries may not want to watch with subtitles.
• Even with a French audience, the show is mysterious and very much based on hermenutic codes. Classical Hollywood narrative - the narrative of every media product should be understood by everyone who chooses to watch it.
• The first episode leaves the audience with many questions.

Reception theory (Hall) - How audiences recieve or negotiate media products.

        Negotiated reading - They like some aspects of the media text but perhaps not all of it.

• They enjoy other generic conventions of the show apart from mystery, such as horror and zombie films, where people come back to life.
• Some audiences enjoy violence.
• Relatability to the small village setting, characters and situations such as Le'na's character or the family-based setting.
• They recognise some of the actors.
• They think the characters are attractive.
• They know the artist/band's soundtrack.

Polysemy - When a media product has many meanings to an audience.

Ideology - The ideas and beliefs of the producer of a media product.

Hegemony - The norms and values of society.

Intertextuality - Where a media product makes reference to another media product.

• Victor, the child, 'creepy child', horror reference.

Scene: Julie and the bus stop and going home

• Long shot of Julie, further emphasises that she is alone. Hegemonic ideology, she is vulnerable. Hegemonically unattractive by beauty standards - baggy clothing, no makeup.
• Julie is not scared, not stereotypical of a woman in a horror film.
• She is working class, she lives in a run-down apartment and area that would be stereotypically rough. She doesn't own a car as she is taking public transport and works as a nurse/carer.
• Body language - bored and tired.
• Low key lighting. High contrast lighting, artificial, light and dark - binary opposition of Victor and Julie of life and death - symbolic.
• Long continuous shot, no movement and builds tension. Paradigmatic feature of the horror genre.
• Music - eerie, high pitch, suspense built in a coventional horror way. Non - diegetic music is purposefully eerie - low repetitive bass punctuated by sudden notes and changing.
• Diegetic atmospheric sound of cars and traffic.
• Victor's slow and subtle appearance in the background is a clear paradigmatic feature of the horror genre.
• Stereotypically, we don't see children wondering around alone at night, it is mysterious.
• Position of the audience - we know something the character doesn't know.
• Mysterious - the child coming from darkness behind, staring at her.
• Polysemy - some audiences may believe either the child is simply lost or horror convention - something bad will happen to her.
• Hermenutic code - Victor standing in the middle of field, why is he standing there? And he doesn't speak creating more mystery and doesn't conform to hegemonic ideology of boys being loud.

Les Revenants - Media Set Product 13

Les Revenants

• A French Television Series first released in 2012.
• It is an unconventional TV drama.
• 'The Returned'.

Semantic codes - hermenutic codes and audience

• It is a narrative reliant on a series of hermenutic codes.
• It is targetted at niche, cult audiences.
• Unlike Classical Hollywood, where the audience's questions and mystery is usually all solved in an invisible narrative, making it clear to what happened. An overly obvious narrative.
• Les Revenants - Atypical narrative, this attracts a niche and fragementary audience and not a mass audience like Hollywood as fans can engagae with the media. A mass audience wouldn't enjoy the enigma of the show. 
• Reception theory - audiences can recieve and negotiate Les Revenants in many ways.

Genre

• Genre is the categorising of media products based on set conventions that are repeated and then changed.
• For producers to target audiences and for audiences to choose what they would like to engage in.
• To target pre exisitng audiences.
• (Conventions) Generic paradigm: a feature, code or symbol within a media product that 'tells' the audience what genre a product belongs (to show).
• Les Revenants features a variety of generic paradgims of its genre.
• Genre conventions are repeated and reinforced over time.
• Hybrid genres - combination of two or more genres.
• Subgenre - genre within a genre.
• Horror genre.
• Sub genre - zombie - dead coming back to life but doesn’t have the typical conventions of it.
• Setting - a small upmarket village near the alps.
• Les Revenants is an unconventional horror and drama.
• The dead coming back to life.

Scene: Camille comes home

- Night time setting.
- Low key lighting.
- Mid shot of Clare, thinking Léna is home.
- Shot of the hand, mid shot of her hair and clothes.
- The mums facial expression is of disbelief.
- Camille thinks she is in disbelief and worry of how late she has come back home.
- Camille runs a bath and the mother messes up her room.
- Shot of mother of Léna's room messy mise en scene she then goes into Camille's room clean - cross cutting.
- Panning shot of setting.
- Tracking shot of Camille.
- Clare upstairs - we are positioned with her.
- Although we’re behind her we are still positioned.
- Low key lighting, hermenutic code.
- Expression of face dazed confused pov shot
- No non diegetic sound in the beginning - heavy breathing of claire and coming down the stairs and ‘Léna?’ and Camille rummaging in the fridge.
- Diegensis - in the world of narrative. 

- Music - Non-diegetic - eerie and low pitched, increasing tension.
- Mysterious girl, hand and hair - generic paradigm we expected a scare moment because she is alone and everything follows that.

- Simulataniously two different genres unfolding in this scene with stereotypical and conventional horror music contrasting with a dramatic scene, creating contrapuntal sound.

        - Clare doesn't have a typical reaction, by the standards of Hollywood. It is seemingly              illogical and mysterious but is routed as a 'real' reaction.

Humans - Mock Exam Question

 

In what ways does the TV industry use specialisedforms of distribution? Make reference to Humans in your answer.

Humans is a British Science-fiction television series in the subgenre of alternative present, it is a remake of the Swedish version called, 'Real Humans', it is distributed by Channel 4 and AMC in a transnational scale targetted at cult audiences. Distribution which means the spreading and sharing of a product to a number of people to consume, the show uses specialised forms of distribution which is important for a media product to be seen by audiences for the financial success of the series.

A specialist form of distribution which Humans use is through cult audiences and fandoms (Jenkins) who are a motivated audience of a media product. This is through viral marketing, where the fans spread the series, Humans, by discussing it to friends as a water-cooler topic and through online forums and social media as a free form of distribution which producers don't have to pay for. This type of marketing is a specialist form of distributing as well a guerilla-marketing, for example Humans created a pop-up shop for 'Persona Synthetics' a fictional company to fix synths of Regent Street and through spot adverts, with unusual marketing creating a snowball effect with more distribution of the TV series through cult audiences and viral marketing. 

Another form of specialised distribution which Humans do is through digitally convergent technology making globalisation and distribution of a media product much easier and enables more profit and power (Curran and Seaton) by having a transnational audience. Humans is distributed by Channel 4 and AMC, a British and American channel, this allows an opportunity to spread and distribute the programme on a global scale and because Channel 4 is in partnership, there is more money being funded into the programme, the higher quality the TV series is, the more revenue it will make.

The TV industry uses specialised forms of distribution to spread the product further and make a high profit. Humans uses specialised forms of distribution through viral marketing and their target audience (cult audience) and having a transnational corporation partnership with the UK and U.S.

Humans - Mock Exam Question - Distribution

In what ways does the TV industry use specialised forms of distribution? Make reference to Humans in your answer.

Humans is a British Science-fiction television series in the subgenre of alternative present, it is a remake of the Swedish version called, 'Real Humans', it is distributed by Channel 4 and AMC in a transnational scale targetted at cult audiences. Distribution which means the spreading and sharing of a product to a number of people to consume, the show uses specialised forms of distribution which is important for a media product to be seen by audiences for the financial success of the series.

A specialist form of distribution which Humans use is through cult audiences and fandoms (Jenkins) who are a motivated audience of a media product. This is through viral marketing, where the fans spread the series, Humans, by discussing it to friends as a water-cooler topic and through online forums and social media as a free form of distribution which producers don't have to pay for. This type of marketing is a specialist form of distributing as well a guerilla-marketing, for example Humans created a pop-up shop for 'Persona Synthetics' a fictional company to fix synths of Regent Street and through spot adverts, with unusual marketing creating a snowball effect with more distribution of the TV series through cult audiences and viral marketing. 

Another form of specialised distribution which Humans do is through digitally convergent technology making globalisation and distribution of a media product much easier and enables more profit and power (Curran and Seaton) by

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Humans - Marketing and Industry

Marketing and Industry

• Hermenuetic code - Persona Synthetics - Spot Advert - Industry.

• Diegetic - Anything that occurs in the world of the narrative.
• Conventional trailers include a montage of clips, this makes Humans an unconventional trailer, it is a diegetically situated trailer. Guerilla marketing - Pop up augmented reality event on Regent Street, viral marketing.
• It is targetting a cult audience, the audience is smaller but intensely motivated.
• Henry Jenkins - Fandom - Fans are intense and motivated who are more likely to engage with a TV show - Merchandise, Social Media, buying DVDs.
• Website for Persona Synthetics, for example, return packaging - creates immersion with the auidence.

• When appealing to audiences, many people may not want to watch because they initially see a Sci-fi with robots and technology, therefore Humans is targetting a niche audience who are fans of Sci-fi.
• Humans is a postmodern show.

• April 2014 it was announced
• Partnership of Channel 4 with Xbox Entertainment Studios. Humans was going to be distributed on TV and on Xbox (Microsoft then disolved Xbox Entertainment Studios), AMC then partnered instead so they can then help finance and also distribute to America - it is a transnational media product.

Ownership and economic factors

• £12 million, mid-budget.

Channel 4

• Ideological perspective - an alternative TV channel.
• Partially publically funded, license-funded, commercial-funded.
• Associated Channels - All4 (Streaming Service), E4, More4, Film4, 4Seven, 4Music.
• Scheduling -
• Notable releases - Peep Show, Inbetweeners, Great British Bake Off, Doctor Who, etc.
• It is publically owned, not-for-profit.