Audience and Marketing

Marketplace Potential
Risen challenges audiences to consider many of the negative effects that technology is having on our society. These effects are experienced by everyone, everyday, the world over. Specifically, this film explores issues surrounding privacy, identity theft and the worst case scenarios that arise from technology overload.

The Film’s protagonist experiences disconnection from his emotions and the world around him, due to a disabling disease and his induced focus on data and information. The impact is to render him virtually Autistic, unable to cope with relationships or develop an appropriate emotional response to others. It’s a strong statement about the impact technology is having on our world, and it’s ability to stifle human connection and stunt our human experience. With a society that is focused on the advancement of technology and it’s apparent improvement on our daily lives, this film will bring a lot of our fears and worries about the long-term effect of this phenomena to the big screen. It will be a thought-provoking and controversial story, that will capture audiences and keep them talking.

Risen is targeted at a global tween audience that includes science fiction and genre fiction fans. Risen is the creation of Brooke Burgess, the Writer & Director behind the ground breaking motion comic epic, Broken Saints. A core strength of this property is Brooke Burgess’ loyal fan base, which he stays in touch with through his active presence in social media. Brokensaints.com has generated approximately 7.5M visits since launching in January, 2001. The audience is global (45% North American, 25% European, 15% Americas, 10% Asia, 10% other territories). Flash hubs like Newgrounds.com, where Broken Saints was the ‘gold award’ series for nearly 5 months between 2004/05 has had 3M hits on Broken Saints episodes. The series has been down- loaded 1.2 M times from Brokensaints.com and the DVD set (distributed by 20th Century FOX) sold 100,000 copies despite its high, $40.00 price tag and minimal marketing support. This audience has grown a few years older, but given their continued support of the series and contact with Brooke through social media, we feel we can mobilize a good portion of them to watch Risen.

Target Audience
The creative for Risen merges sci-fi with elements of psychological thriller and action / adventure. The goal is broad audience appeal fueled by a smart treatment of a number of technology-based issues and phenomena that increasingly affect our lives in significant ways.

Primary:    15 – 19 year old teenage fans of Sci-Fi and fantasy (i.e. Twilight Audience)
Secondary:    18 – 45 year old sophisticated Sci-Fi and fantasy viewers (i.e. Matrix, Donnie Darko, Lawnmower Man, Cube audience)