Snap Inc has announced a new slate of Snap Originals, the company’s premium, mobile shows created exclusively for Snapchat’s audience. The new shows will be available globally on Snapchat’s Discover page, which is vying to become one of the industry’s leading made-for-mobile video platforms.
New Snap Originals will begin airing in May 2019 and include a range of genres, including serialised scripted dramas and comedies, character-driven docuseries, and unscripted social commentary. Snap is partnering with some of the industry’s “next and best creators to continue to define mobile storytelling”, it says.
Production partners include Bunim/Murray Productions, Dakota Pictures, New Form, and Bazelevs, as well as established film and television writers and producers.
Snap’s new slate includes:
- Two Sides – (New Form) – A young couple navigates a breakup in this innovative series told from both characters’ points of view at the same time. Scripted series launches May 2019.
- Commanders – (Dakota Pictures) – In this comedy, two teenage outcasts discover a mysterious code within a retro computer that can alter real life. When they decide to use this newfound power to disrupt the cliché social structure, their high school will never be the same. Scripted series launches June 2019.
- Untitled BuzzFeed Daily Show – (BuzzFeed) – BuzzFeed’s daily afternoon show brings viewers the latest celebrity, entertainment, and OMG moments blowing up the internet. Launches Spring 2019.
- Sneakerheads – (Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and EMJAG Productions) – A comedy that follows the misadventures of three college freshmen as they navigate the crazy, shady, mercurial world of Los Angeles sneaker culture. Scripted series launches June 2019.
- While Black – (Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Main Event Media) – Author, filmmaker, recording artist, and educator MK Asante explores racially charged social issues through candid conversations. Unscripted social commentary launches in the US Summer of 2019.
- Can’t Talk Now – (New Form) – A teen soap that takes place inside the phones of a group of high school freshman BFFs as drama unfolds across group texts, video chats, and social media. Scripted series launches Summer 2019.
- Compton Dreams – (October Films) – Follow the highs and lows of three up-and-coming artists from Compton as they strive to become the next big name in hip-hop. Docuseries launches in the US Summer of 2019.
- Denton’s Death Date – (Insurrection Media) – This comedy, set in a world where everyone knows the exact day they are going to die, centres on Denton Little, a high school junior whose death date is only a week away. Denton finally starts living his life to the fullest when a series of strange events unfold that may be the key to avoiding his fate. Based on the novel by Lance Rubin. Scripted series launches September 2019
- d with Sam and Colby – (Bunim/Murray Productions) – A pair of influencers film from a haunted location and what starts as something fun quickly takes a terrifying turn. Docuseries launches in the US Autumn of 2019.
- Dead of Night – (Bazelevs in association with Hooked) – Armed with only her phone, a teenage girl must escape a quarantined city full of zombies. Shot in ScreenLife, exclusively from the point of view of the smartphone screen. Based on a Hooked story. Produced by Bazelevs in association with Hooked. Scripted series launches October 2019.
In addition, Snap also announced it will be renewing the following serialised Snap Originals: Endless Summer by Bunim/Murray Productions, Deep Creek by Woodman Park Productions, an All3Media America company, and The Dead Girls Detective Agency by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts, Insurrection Media, and Keshet.
Click here to read about the origin of Snap Originals, and Snapchat’s new augmented reality and camera experiences.
“Snap launched Discover in January 2015 as a place for Snapchatters to explore premium content from an editorial perspective,” the company said in a statement last week. “Rooted in the creativity of its community and facilitated by the unique power of the Snapchat camera, Discover pioneered the first Story format and vertical video content orientation now being adopted by other platforms. Today, Discover features mobile magazines (called Publisher Stories), and Shows from hundreds of creative partners around the world.”
Snap unveiled its first slate of serialised Snap Originals in October 2018. Season one of Endless Summer was watched by over 28 million unique viewers, and over 40% of the users that completed the first episode of The Dead Girls Detective Agency went on to watch the entire first season.
Snap Originals are available on the Discover page to Snapchat users globally. Each episode averages five minutes in length and brands can purchase commercials within these shows, in Snap’s six-second, non-skippable ad format. For more on Snap Originals, snaporiginals.snapchat.com.
Click here to read about Snapchat’s newly announced augmented reality and camera search experiences.
Snap has also announced new augmented reality and camera search experiences for creators, partners, and Snapchatters.
Lenses are Snap’s augmented reality product. Snapchat Lenses combine some of the world’s most advanced augmented reality technology with the creativity of the Snapchat community. On average, more than 70% of Daily Active Users play with or view a Lens every day on the service.
is Snap’s camera search experience. Snapchatters can “press and hold” on the Snapchat camera screen to scan and unlock relevant experiences based on what is in the viewfinder or environment. They can scan a Snapcode to unlock special filters and Lenses, a physical product or barcode to surface search results on Amazon, or while listening to music to learn more about what’s playing, through with Shazam.
Snap’s Lens Studio is a free, publicly available desktop app for anyone to build and distribute Lenses on Snapchat. Lens Studio packages up Snap’s state of the art computer vision and graphics technology into simple templates for creators. More than 400,000 Lenses have been created by Snap’s community through Lens Studio, and those Lenses have been played with over 15 billion times.
Snap is updating Lens Studio to include more capabilities for Lens creation, including templates for hand tracking, body tracking, and pet tracking.
Lens Studio will now include templates for Snap’s new Lens experiences. These Lenses enable augmented reality experiences that can transform landmarks in real-time.
Templates for five locations are available to creators now, including Buckingham Palace (London), United States Capitol Building (Washington, DC), Eiffel Tower (Paris), Flatiron Building (New York City), and the TCL Chinese Theater (Los Angeles).
AR Bar and Scan
Snap is also introducing a new, unified Lens experience on the platform and additional, robust camera search capabilities. “AR Bar” and “Scan” will begin rolling out soon to Snapchatters.
AR Bar is designed to make it easier for Snapchatters to discover and navigate Lenses and camera search experiences. They will be able to Create, Scan, and Explore all in one place.
AR Bar will also feature a new Scan button, designed to bring up contextually relevant Lenses and camera-based experiences with a tap.
With Scan, relevant Lenses, including those created by Snap’s public community through Lens Studio, will appear for Snapchatters based on what is in the camera view.
Snap is also introducing new Scan partners. In partnership with Photomath, Snapchatters will be able to point the Snapchat camera at a math equation to see the solution appear within the camera. Additionally, a new integration with partner GIPHY will invite users to decorate their Snaps with contextually relevant, dynamically generated GIF Lenses based on what’s in the Snapchat camera view.