The Genre of “Thrillumentary” Turns Out to Still be in High Demand!
The “Thrillumentary” genre is alive and well and offers new opportunities for emerging filmmakers as an effective manner for getting out your own personal message or that of your client. There are currently many streaming sites out there that allow you to charge customers money to see your thrillumentary. And more and more streaming services like this are being added all the time! But the question arises as to how do you create video content that both entertains and gets out your thoughts and feelings about a hot button issue or becomes a means of your client widening the number of eyes in conjunction with marketing their business?
The Tightrope of Having Advertisers Subsidizing Your
First off, if your goal of making a thrillumentary as a means of helping a client to promote their business, you are walking a tightrope. Step by step gets you closer and closer to your destination, but as small a thing as a slight misstep can cause a project to be derailed. If the perception is that the thrillumentary you are making has only one goal which is to promote something, people will likely lose interest in it quickly. You have at least two ways to face this problem. One is to keep the commercial content away from the thrillumentary story content. Think the old days of television having commercials running in-between the featured programing. The sponsors are seeking the audience that will be attracted to your Thrilllumentary. But aside from that, nary a mix be made. That is the first solution.
Product Placement, Good or Bad
The second solution is to give in to the concept of “product placement.” How? By calling your thrillumentary what it is: one long commercial! If you craft the storyline properly with a little sly wink to convey that you are selling while entertaining, you can make the viewer become an ally in the process. But this is not always easy to do in terms of being clever about the advertising process. If you do not meld story with advertising in a compelling way, you could lose viewers. But do not rule out “Breaking the 4th wall.” Test your concept with family, friends, and collaborators. They may give you constructive criticism. Or maybe not. Either way product placement used to facilitate the making of your Thrillumentary is worth at least looking in to.