The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes; A Hunger Games Synopsis
Have you ever experienced a movie or a book that you just couldn’t stop giving your attention to? The constant thought of what might happen next. For years on end the world saw the hold that The Hunger Games books and movie series had on its fans. As I saw a new book in the series come out over the last year, I figured it would only be appropriate to do an overview of the entire series as it fits so perfectly into our class topics. Ultimately, viewers followed along on the journey of a young woman named Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is the draw from district twelve for the hunger games. In this dystopian world, there are many different districts in the world. Each district picks a male or a female from ages 12–18 who goes to fight to the death for their district. We see many different characters come into the plot throughout the many movies and books, but Katniss stays a consistent main character.
The series uses many different tactics that get the audience attracted to the characters. The first tactic used by The Hunger Games franchise is transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is a narrative technique that has the plot described over a number of places. In this case we see it in books and movies. There are a total of four books and four movies in this series; one more popular than the next. The plot in both the book and movies stays the same. On top of these platforms, Lionsgate used advertising to their advantage for transmedia. According to a scholarly article The Rise of Transtexts: Challenges and Opportunities, “Lionsgate also launched a fashion line inspired by The Hunger Games, which it advertised in magazines and giant billboards across the United States. This strategy was also relayed on twitter using the hashtags #captiolstyle or #ohsocapitol and on the Instagram official account of The Hunger Games. The clothes were created by a costume designer from the movie, adding a sense of reality to the strategy. Every Friday the Capitol Couture magazine showed new fashion clothes or perfumes with the tagline: ‘Be fabulous, Be Capitol. Be seen.” Lionsgate even included an interactive element asking fans to send a picture of themselves that they could publish on the Tumblr,” (Bourdaa 94). This quote is just one example of what Lionsgate did for extra transmedia storytelling. Their main goal was to get the fans feeling connected and involved in the world of The Hunger Games in hopes that fans would become attracted to the characters and setting. The capitol is essentially the white house of the districts and is a big deal. Once the viewers and dressing like people from the capitol, they become connected. It was a great move on Lionsgate to advertise the way they did.
Another tactic that was used by The Hunger Games franchise was the narrative arc shown over the entire series. In both the book and film, we follow along with the wins and losses of each character. Essentially, a narrative arch is the struggles faced by a character over time. We see this a whole bunch throughout the series. As to not give anything away I will give a brief overview of some of the areas you may see; relationships, romance, coming of age, issues with the games itself, ‘political’ issues, and so on. A narrative arc gives us enough depth on the characters to think of them as actual people. This is a big reason we see people becoming attracted to the characters- because they feel like they know them. Series do so well because they are built off of one another and create a huge storyline. It pulls people in and keeps them hooked.
It is no surprise that The Hunger Games franchise and Lionsgate work amazingly well at what they do. They have been able to do a wonderful job with their transmedia storytelling and their narrative arc. Two different things that keep the readers very interested. The recent book in the series that came out was called “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” It was essentially a prequel/spinoff to the entirety of the series that came out last. It was definitely not my favorite book in the series. However, I would definitely recommend this entire series. The work has great value as the people behind the work know exactly what the spectators want.
