Researcher investigates the business potential of fictional worlds

What would the children’s television advent calendar Valdes jul [Valde’s Christmas] be without the big tree in the forest? What would the TV series Friends be without the coffee shop? The Lord of the Rings films are centred around a ring. 

Details are important in films and TV shows, and when enough details are put together, a world emerges. It does not have to be big, strange and fantasy-like – it can also be about creating the right image of a police station as a backdrop for officers investigating a murder. 

- My research shows that creating worlds as a screenwriter is about establishing a framework. Time is money in the film and TV industry. You can easily end up creating something you don’t need. Then you’ve wasted time and money, explains postdoc Nathali Herold Solon Pilegaard.

Fierce competition for viewers

There is currently fierce competition in the streaming market. There is a large amount of content, and consumers do not have time to watch it all. 

- Danish films and series are in a competitive situation, and they have to figure out how to ensure that viewers stay with them and watch the shows. There are broadcasters in the Nordic region who are looking for new or unusual fictional worlds, says the postdoc. 

This is where Nathali comes in. She is a newly appointed postdoc in the Spin-outs Denmark programme. She is working on creating a business based on her research. 

The researcher asserts that sustainability is a big issue in the film and TV industry right now.

- Regulations on sustainability have been introduced, and the industry is struggling to adapt. It’s an industry driven by habit, and they’re at rock bottom. How do we proceed? The production phase, when they do the recording, and the distribution phase, when the viewers stream the content, are both being looked at, she explains. 

- But what about the very early phase? Authors can make contributions at a very early stage when the script is still being developed. After all, they are the ones creating the story.

Nathali Herold Solon Pilegaard has investigated improvement potentials. Several screenwriters sit together in a room and write and talk together until the story and script are finalised.

- The industry focuses on narrative and characters and doesn’t really see the point of spending a lot of time on creating worlds. But in practice, they actually do spend quite a lot of time on it. In fact, they use lots of methods that aren’t productive for them, and they need something that can help clarify their common understanding, for instance, in relation to sustainability.

A tool for writers can ensure better stories

Nathali will spend the next year conducting a market analysis that will be the basis for developing a tool for authors devised by herself and other researchers at SDU.

The tool will initially be used to help the Danish film and TV series industry in the industry’s sustainable transition.

The first step is to talk to broadcasters (e.g. TV 2), producers and writers to establish what such a tool should do and how it can best be introduced and implemented in a habit-driven industry.