Adam Mounir
A few weeks before the start of Ramadan, ZODIAC was shown on the Viu platform, the platform that started to produce its own content.
It was recently shown the series "Ana Chery dot com" in its first Arabic business.
At a time when Arab viewers are becoming increasingly popular on platforms, Netflix is offering Arab productions that are not produced. Is ZODIEC the ideal format for electronic platforms?
Best seller
The series is based on the story of "Your Luck Today" by the Egyptian writer Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq, whose writings have gained strong popularity not only in Egypt, but in all Arab countries.
Most of the work of the late writer was directed at young people, the target audience for the content makers of electronic platforms, so the choice was smart for two reasons:
The first is that successful literary works usually get popular when they turn into movies or television.
The film "Hepta .. The Last Lecture" in 2016 has achieved 27 million pounds (...) in Egypt, although not dependent on the stars of the first grade, and the lack of popularity of the romantic genre of films in this period, but an essential part of this success is the novel " Hepta "to Mohammed Sadiq, which has achieved significant sales, and built the film.
While the second reason for the intelligence of this choice is that it is the first time that one of the works of Ahmed Khaled Tawfik becomes a series, despite the attempts and promises to create multiple works of art based on his stories and novels.
The fact that "Zodiac" bears the mark "The first work taken from a novel by Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq" is in itself a motivation for many to watch.
Welcome to horror
But the choice of work for Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq does not only mean addressing the large segment of his readers, but relying on a story based on the horror and suspense, the favorite icons of the writer, which are also the preferred types of followers of electronic platforms.
Of the four Arabic series presented by Netflix this Ramadan, the highest was the series "The Writer" which revolves around a thrill.
Although there is not much horror-based work in Arab soap operas, few of them show every success, and perhaps the most recent work was the series "Kafr Dahlab" in 2017.
The Zodiac is in a form of thrill mixed with horror at a group of university students involved in investigations into the murder of an astronomer with whom they had a dialogue.
While a band of witches are seeking to revive a Pharaonic mummy, this astronomer was her first victim. Among them is a poor girl who sees strange visions that the students seek to help and the gang seeks to capture.
The series runs a good rhythm between these different lines, and exploits the myths about the curse of the Pharaohs, which is rarely exposed in the Egyptian drama.
From young to young
Many of the successful American soap operas do not rely on well-known actors, but include many new and young faces.
"Game of Thrones" himself saw most of his heroes as a teenager or childhood in the first part, and perhaps was not known to the public except Shin Bean in the role of Ned Stark.
One of the most successful series on the platform "Stranger Things" is based on the Championship of a group of unknown children.
The makers of these works bet on the quality of the content itself and the choice of good new faces that succeed in leaving the desired impact on the public. Another aspect of course is important for the makers of a platform such as "View" trying to make its way in the Arab viewers.
This aspect is the provision of wages, a large part of the budget of any television series of large names goes to representatives, and therefore in the case of the use of new faces will be possible.
At the same time, however, it will be difficult to promote an Egyptian series based entirely on new faces that are not known to the public. The work therefore includes names that the public already knows and has achieved successes in the past few years, even if it has not reached the stage of the star or absolute championship.
The most prominent names in the Zodiac are actress Asma Abu Al Yazid, who plays a pivotal role in the work, as it is the link between the gang and the students.
Away from 30 episodes
Most foreign serials abandon the concept of a fixed number of episodes, especially Netflix series, which are displayed all at once rather than the weekly or weekly episodes.
But in the Arab countries we still adhere to the mold of 30 episodes, sometimes 60, although this template is a restriction of creativity, because the logical is the industry of the number of appropriate episodes of the subject and dramas, especially with the series of freedom is not found in films that relate to the duration Also selected for display in theaters.
For a number of years now, the criticism of television works has been rising because of the unwarranted expansion, or some episodes of events, to complete the 30 episodes.
Zodiac comes in only 15 episodes, the average duration of the episode is 32 minutes, and the number of episodes is the closest to the scenes of the electronic platforms, which can spend his time watching several episodes sequentially, but will definitely prefer to watch more than a few episodes, to watch One work spanning 30 episodes.
In the end, the series committed only 15 episodes to succeed in marketing on television channels, which will prefer 15 episodes so that they can replay the show again during the month, or another show of 15 episodes as well.
But as the viewing experience on the View platform has been a success, this may encourage freedom from the rigor of the full set of episodes.