Research - 'Room' - Marketing and Distribution

'Room' is a new film for 2016 based on the best-selling novel by Emma Donoghue; an extraordinary story of a 5 year old named Jack who lives in a single room with his mother. He has never seen the outside world, he has never known the comfort of strangers except for his mother's - and the world of which most 5 year olds explore comes in the form of this one room for Jack. He makes friends with characters on his TV, and believes that the window above his head revealing the sky outside of it is his. So when it appears that Jack and his mother have finally found the perfect opportunity to lead a new life, Jack must find his courage and face this new world of which he has never known.

Distribution and Marketing;

'Room' - original book
By Emma Donoghue

'Room' has been distributed in a variety of ways. Particularly for films coming from an independent institution can sometimes require a larger scale of marketing - or a more specific campaign - to aim at the chosen audience. 

Luckily, being a book originally, this can have advantages for independent films due to the fact that the book will already have a following; therefore these people will more likely want to see the film. 

'Room' Official Twitter Page

Ultimately, the niche market of which this film both aims itself at and attracts comes from the nature of the book itself - and those who have read it. The book itself discusses issues such as obsession, domestic abuse and certain mental illnesses. This in turn, would make the film more likely to connect to maybe an audience of parents, people who have gone through similar issues (or ones which relate to the topics in the book) - and even to people who have read the book themselves. 

In order to distribute the film to such a market, the film 

has created pages on several social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook; the distributors of the film has even created an official website for the film.

'Room' Official Facebook Page

'Room' Official Website

This website is beautifully unique. When you first enter the website all you are supplied with is a plain background with moving images of the characters going across it, as well as the title of the film itself (as shown in the picture below). In addition, music is also played, which is the same as one of the songs the character of the mother sings to her son in the book. 

The website has a menu bar discreetly placed on the top left-hand side of the page and this supplies a user with a wide range of information i.e; the backgrounds of the various actors/actresses in the film, information on the film itself - such as who created it - and, most interestingly, a link to a page all about the author of 'Room' Emma Donoghue. 

'Emma's Corner' - a part of
'Room's official website

Emma Donoghue
Author of 'Room'

And this is another interesting factor with this film, The screenplays for films are very rarely written by the author themselves. However, I believe that this is a brilliant idea. As someone who reads a lot of books myself, I am also someone who finds I'm very often disappointed with how the book has been interpreted into a screenplay for a film or TV series. So to know that the author of 'Room' - a book I myself have read and highly enjoyed - is being made into a film, with the screenplay written by the author of the book, makes me want to see the film more; I believe this would also be the same for others who have read the book: thus, we are the ones who specifically fall into the niche market of which the film aims itself at.