Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Learn Mastery at Reporting News: from Broadway to Films

Broadway musical shows are one of the famous New York’s interests to people all over the world. But should we always go to Broadway’s theaters in Manhattan for that? Years before, the answer was surly yes! In little more than a month, I will say no. Broadway Worldwide is endeavoring to translate its musical work “Of Mice and Men” into film version, which will be beamed into thousands of film theaters around the US in November.

From NYTimes, Oct 7, C5

The article “CatchingBroadway on Camera” in Today’s (Oct 7) New York Times tells us this good news and even deeply analyzes this process of “From Broadway to Movie Screen”. Rather than a press only telling the basic fact, this article is more like a feature story about the entire offstage happenings contributing to this Broadway breakthrough.

In terms of public relations, this article has two values. One is to publicize “Of Mice and Men”, to inform the audiences that this shows will be filmed to get released next month. Publicity is better than advertisement because it’s cost-effectively and credible. If “Of Mice and Men”, for example, post its advertising pictures on NYTimes, the production will pay 180,000 dollars for one-page once, which means too much for an organization that doesn’t gain many profits. However, by publicity like this, the production can only spend a minimum on coffees or snacks that give reporters when discussing this pitch. Also, from an unbiased voice, rather than a self-based ad, all the sentences in the article serve as stronger persuasive tools to tell audiences Broadway is trying its best to do better.

The other is to trigger discussions and thinking about the new method Broadway can make credits. Broadway, in this Internet era, faces more strong competitors such as online videos. It needs changes and also more exposures via various outlets. In this sense, this article seems like a promotional plan within Broadway’s business proposal.

As a PR person, I actually learn a lot from this article about how to conduct an appealing, newsworthy and creative story. I think there are five elements:

(1)  CONTENT: This article chooses a “new” format as its reporting angle. The translation of musical shows to films is something never seen before and thus will get audiences’ interests.

(2)  RESULT: Actually, it is New Yorkers’ or worldwide people’s habits to watch a Broadway show in a Broadway theater. If Broadway stars to make shows films, people will have to make a choice when they want to see Broadway shows. This action, therefore, has a great impact on millions of thousands of people’s daily entertaining life and can draw attentions easily.

(3)  STYLE: This article tells a long story concerning not only the progressing steps of “Stages-to-Screens” but also the challenges and following endeavors of this progress.

(4)  QUOTE: In this article, the author quotes many executive members’ sayings, like the creative star James Franco, the producer David Binder, the co-president of a distributor company Julie Borchard-Young and even the movie star Orlando Bloom. These celebrities certainly are from each part of this translating chain, from shows’ production, to distribution, and to the film industry. All these third-party endorsements lend credibility to this article that set a good sample of discussions among audiences.

(5)  ATTITUDE: Reporters must remain natural, objective and indifferent when writing articles. The author of this article, Lorne Manly, shows his unbiased opinion as soon as he edits the title “Catching Broadway on Camera: Possible Progress in a Longtime Effort”. “Possible” and ”Longtime”, two conservative words, implicates that the effort doesn’t make sense right now. And at the end, he quotes Orlando’s comment of no guarantee of box office success. However, he also refers to some positive facts like Broadway’s endeavors and other successful examples. This balance between good things and bad ones give audiences chances to further discuss after reading.