NEW YORK – Bionic (www.bionic.tv) recently completed work on a Monk-themed promo campaign for USA Network that’s designed to drive viewers of the cable net to its Website, where they can view Little Monk Webisodes. The 10 four-minute episodes present the early days of the popular “obsessive detective,” including his compulsions and how he got his start in solving crimes.
WATCH THE VIDEOBionic created promos for each of the sequential Webisodes. The studio also created a two-minute “sneak peek” spot that contained footage culled from the first Webisode.
The promos run on USA during the broadcast of Monk’s final season, and are sponsored by Choice Hotels, which took advantage of a clever branding opportunity. The hotel chain provided use of its hotel for production of a Webisode and cleverly had its logo play off off little Monk’s compulsions. In the close for each promo, little Monk is shown straightening up a pillow on a Choice Hotels’ bed. His attention to detail perfectly orients the hotel chain’s logo.
According to Bionic’s executive producer Jim Johnson, the promos were slightly different than typical broadcast promos in that they were not driven by broadcast times or schedules. Since the Webisodes can be watched at any time, there was no need to promote tune-in times or dates or to create numerous variations.
Johnson says the Webisodes were shot in HD on Panasonic P2 media and footage for the promos was presented to Bionic on drives. The studio cut the promos using its Avid system, which included the use of Symphony for retouching, color correction, support graphics and tracking of the Choice logo. Sound design, voiceover recording and mixing were also handled at Bionic in the facility’s Pro Tools suite.
Final delivery was standard definition in the 16x9 format with a stereo soundtrack.