Ownership
- Duffer brothers







How do they reach their audiences?

Conventional internet
Poster
TV advertising
Recommendation based

Measuring Viewership 
Measured on per account basis- Can be more than one person viewing the account
Averaged 8.8 million viewers

How they maintain audience 
Seasons are sent out immediately so can view all episodes right away- good for binge watching

Retention
Trailers
Names of episodes- Made ahead of the release dates that can build up excitement


Distribution 
Started 15th July 2016 and all 8 episodes were released at once- Could binge watch
Netflix can be downloaded on any smartphone, laptop desktops and tablets

Released in 130 countries operating nearly everywhere
Were not global as 4 countries do no have Netflix

won 48 awards
Millie  won best actress
'immersive' viewing
15.8 million people have watched the first episode but only 4.6mil watched the whole series
Penguin paired with Netflix to release a series of books related to Stranger things in late 2018
' Dark horse comics'

Stranger things representation

Social worker is someone were supposed to trust
Government are people we are supposed to abide by
Sheriff is really lazy when we should be relying on him to keep the town safe
This all leads to a sense of mistrust

Key terms:
Dominant ideology
Constructed realism
Paranormal elements
Family life
Suburbia
Self reflextvity

Dominant ideology 
Attitudes and beliefs
Upper dominant class

Two main narratives 
-Will goes missing
-Eleven appears 
-Appearance of paranormal 

Paranormal themes 
-Paranormal noises when the man runs into the lift 
-Light flickering on garage 
-Eleven stops the fan
-Monster growing on the wall

Social Group
Age
Gender
Class
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Regional identity
Appearances
Lifestyle + interests
Political views/values
Professions

Paranormal 
Flickering light bulbs - On the porch

Constructed realism
Paranormal elements
Family life

Themes 
- Isolation 
- Darkness
- Light
- Fear 'the monster' people we are meant to trust
- Social groups
- Issues 

Narrative Structure

Linear Narrative

• Clear, middle and end
• Follows chronological time frame
• Action A leads to action B leading to action C

Fragmented Narrative 

• Non linear
• Disrupted/disjointed narrative
• Not a clear middle/end
• Shown out of chronological order 
• Narrative technique that can help show parallel stories
• Seen to replicate the way the human mind works 
• Make audience 

Enigma code - Ronald Barthes 

• Man in elevator killed- 
• Why dont they care about the first character
• What killed him?
• Met Eleven: Where does she come from ?

Restriction Narrative 

• Experience a story through the sense of one character   

Omnipresent Narrative 

• Seeing view of the world of the story point of view of every character 

Narrative endings

Stranger things Characters and representations

Stranger Things

Stranger Things

Era

• 1980s
• Enjoyed by both young and old audiences
• Makes intertextual references to a range of 80s texts
• Stephan Kings novel
• Dungens and Dragons
• ET
• Stand by me
• The goonies

Representation
Masculinity- Teacher, Government workers, Sheriff/ Police, Jonathon- Cooking, Crying etc.
Age- Young vs Old, young swearing etc 'no ones typical'
Small town America
80's
Teenage- geeks over plastics
Intertextuality
Stranger Things 2016
ET 1982

Speilberg- Et was a huge influence and the duffer brothers wanted to set the film by the coast to make reference to jaws however the budget didn't allow this.
Stephen King- Eleven has been compared to Carrie and the font in the title clearly rejects a homage to the king of Horror.
Nightmare on Elm street- monster through the wall
The Goonies- Young actors
Firestarter- Young girl with head manipulation techniques
Stand by me/ the body- Kids walking along tracks
Synergy
-Eleven's favourite food are eggs waffles. Kelloggs Eggo was not product placement in the first series.
-However, Eggo sales have increased dramatically, and as such Kellogg's have jumped on the 80's bandwagon, by including one of the 80's adverts in the season trailer for Season 2. This was launched at the NFL Super Bowl.
-National Waffle day was celebrated by a post made on twitter referencing Eleven and stranger Things.
Fandom and Stranger things 
-The series has a strong online fan base.
-Fans often create negotiated readings
-Textual Poachers- selecting part of the text that appeal to them and using these as the basis of their 'WE media" products.
-Fan essential in the marketing/ promotional process- their fan art etc shared by Stranger Things official social media accounts.
The Duffer Brothers
- The duffer brothers began making films in the third grade using a hi8 video camera that was a gift from their parents.
-They relocated to orange, California to study film at Chapmans University's Dodge College of Film and Moving Arts, graduating in 2007
-After writing/ directing a number of short films, their script for the post-apocalyptic horror film Hidden was acquired by Warner Bros in 2011

Original Netflix series so paid for by them and distributed by them exclusively.
Ranked as the most popular digital series in the US only after the week after its release on Netflix
Merch
Stranger Things Pops
T-shirts, phone cases etc
Success of Stranger Things
Attributed to its pacing and its binge-ability. In earlier iterations, Stranger Things was set to be a film, however, they decided with Netflix to let it play out without being restricted to a standard 13 or 22 episode run.
Low budget and Netflix is paid via subscription  rather than per program
 The series was first aired Netflix 15th July 2016, with only 8 episodes. 

Social Media- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram . Fan Art, memes and gifs produced by prosumers in the fan community. Features links to announcements and Q&A streams, interviews and other content.
Millennials
The generation now represents a quarter of the US population. This group also has an annual buying power of more than $200 billion, yet its still one of the most challenging generations for marketers to figure out.
Nostalgia Marketing 
-People generally spend more money when they are feeling nostalgic.
-Stranger Things lays the nostalgia on thick with the 80's fashion and hairstyles. Back to a time when kids went outside on their bikes.
-Captivated by title sequence as same style of 80's. The font choice is distinctly 80's and shows the attention to detail and authentic feel.
-Even though the familiar feeling, the show still feels original.

Stranger things Poster

Poster analysis

Setting -

• School
•  Suburban Town
•  Night time
• Barbed Wire
• Keep Out (danger)

Themes- 

• Parnormal
•  Blue and Red- Star Wars
•  Polar opposites magnets
•  Age
•  Love
•  Friendship
•  Fear

Icons- 

• Bikes
•  Camera
•  Radio
•  Walkie Talkies

Genre-

• Horror
•  Sci-Fi
•  Thriller

Characters- 

• Non gender main character
• US middle class
•  youth majority
•  facial expressions ( anger, fear, confusion, defensive, determined.

Intertextuality- 

• 80's teen film

Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter

Long form TV drama

EXAM
Long answer- 30marks 60mins
Apply a theory- 10marks 25mins
40 marks
85mins


Language
Industries
Audience
Representation

The rise of long from TV drama 

Institutional context
US network broadcasters must satisfy their advertisers and hold market share. They are also controlled by federal regulation.

• Launched in 1970's
• First US national cable tv channel
• Fix, showtime and AMC- Many subsidiaries of larger conglomerates.

UK LFTVD

• BBC and ITV 90's- rely on heritage and crime drama
• SKY- US long form with sky Atlantic
• CHANNEL 4- foreign language/ subtitled long form winners

Problems with UK tv drama?

• UK Broadcasters have failed to meet the challenge of the US cable channels move to long form, with their risk taking content and style
• BBC and ITV 90s> relied on genre based, formula drama. Heritage and crime drama are prime examples.
• Sky co-opted success of US long form with sky Atlantic

Changing platforms

Content viewing via a TV still dominates in the UK

Netflix dominates 24% of UK market

PVR- Personal Viewing Recorder (3/4 households)

Time shift- Planning watching schedule 
SVOD- Subscription video on demand (netflix)

Binge watching started with DVD in late 90's.
'Water cooler tv' to 'shared universe fandom'
Easter eggs- clues, cross references (tv, film, video games)


Why do audiences love LFTVD?

• High quality drama
• Multiple episodes hours years
• Content can be dark and difficult but innovative
• Time shifting, easily acceptable
• Easily accessible
• Attracts some  of the  best and innovative writers and actors

'State of the nation' TV
 -Long from shows challenge the simplistic storylines and stereotypical characters that dominate the networking TV in US ( CSI)
-HBO ( time Warner) launched The sopranos in 1999 (2007) which was a huge commercial and critical hit. Increasingly these shows were about the crisis of US identity.
-Other shows followed inc. The Wire (2002-2008) which won awards and turned US TV into a medium for a serious subject matter and critique.

12- West Wing

13- Buffy the vampire slayer

The Emergency Room
Genre- Occult fiction
Themes- High school, youth
Narrative- Young girl becomes the next in line of 'Vampire slayers'
Platforms- DVD

Netflix- Haven't made a profit