Welcome back fans—of whatever aspect of our production you may be fans of. In any case, what can we launch to determine if you’re a fan or not? This week we discussed Eileen Meehan’s insight into film as a commodity in her article, “‘Holy Commodity Fetish, Batman!’” which analyzes the production of Tim Burton’s Batman film in the 1980s. The steps preceding the decisions of beginning production on this film were clearly grand as Meehan describes it. However, we are not working with what Meehan would call a “tried and true product” as she does the Batman franchise. Powers does not garner the same attention that Batman can: we cannot open a hotline asking fans if they would like to see Deena killed—she’s just not as iconic as the famous sidekick, Robin. Of course, there’s no use whining about our disadvantages, we just have to work with the merits of our own project.
In terms of ancillaries, Meehan brought up two which we discussed in terms of our adaptation of Powers. First of all, Meehan explains the success of Prince’s connection with the film to increase fans and sales for both the film and his album. She notes the strong link between the two to be the music videos which feature imagery and scenes from the film. However, Meehan overlooks the importance of the rising popularity of music videos in the late 80s; they were seen as miniature films (Michael Jackson’s Thriller, for example). Without the same interest in music videos, it’s become much more difficult to draw connections between album and film in order to use albums as ancillaries effectively; albums now must illustrate the connection with the film through the tone of their music alone. Nonetheless, Iron Man 2, for example, created an ancillary album with the help of AC/DC. The music of AC/DC clearly resonates with the tone of Iron Man as, for lack of a better term, an American bad boy. Though your eyebrows may be raised, AC/DC do in fact garner an American bad boy image through their edgy music…in the 80s. Thus, Iron Man clearly demonstrates an air of charisma to a younger generation while AC/DC illicit the same bad boy attitude to the older (male) generation. It is important to note that the album was not used the same as Prince’s for Batman. While Prince was used to grab at a separate audience (female and African American as noted by Meehan), AC/DC was simply used to bridge a generational gap for the desired tone of the film. So, rather than ambitiously grasping for new audiences, the producers of Iron Man maintained the tone of their film and merely extended their audience to an older generation that may also be interested in a revival of the bad boy image. They stayed true to the tone of their film rather than drawing the major connections through music videos hoping to grab a completely foreign audience. With this analysis of the development of album ancillaries in mind, we believe the dark, gritty, and powerful tone we wish to create in our film deserves a musical counterpart. We require a band that offers this tone to an audience outside our comic reading/ late teen male demographics that we can already achieve through various advertisements (rather than ancillaries). We are searching for a band that can effectively portray the tone of our film to a wider demographic as well as AC/DC did for Iron Man 2.
The second ancillary we find has merits for our project is the DVD. Though Meehan does not discuss these in her article (go figure as she discusses a film made in the 80s), we believe in the importance of DVD’s to promote our film and increase our sales in the future sequels. Throughout our blogs and in our presentation, we have stressed the importance of creating a full and complex world within our films. The DVD is an excerpt from this world that allows the audience further insight. The amount of bonus features that could include set tours and, character biographies, summaries of the comic series, etc. would feed the viewers interest in the franchise making them eager for more. Viewers would use these features to submerse themselves within the world of Powers, peaking their interest enough to join speculative conversations with other fans. As we’ve stated before, we are not pitching a summer tent pole; we expect to harvest fandom through word of mouth which leads to an explosion for DVD sales as with movies such as Fight Club. Though this may seem like an empty hope, it becomes all the more possible with the help of the internet. Online posts of bonus features similar to the ones on the DVD can spread like wild fire if they express a dedication to maintaining a unique and intriguing tone. Viewers climb deeper and deeper through the rabbit hole wishing to construct the extensive world of Powers. The flow of fans would follow the internet to the DVD, and the DVD to future sequels. Online attention always garners a fan base as we saw with Heroes; however, we also recognize that this is a risk to count on people to find our DVD. Nonetheless, this ancillary could offer a very large pay off if it successfully extends the extensive world we wish to create in our films as discussed in our presentation pitch.
That is our long winded reasoning for our desire to make use of these two ancillaries (at least); our commitment to a consistent and unique tone lends itself to make effective use of soundtrack and DVD. There’s much more to add, but, like the DVD, it’s only a minor insight to answer a few questions that drive your interest (and ours).
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