{"id":2518,"date":"2013-11-26T17:58:01","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/11\/26\/ytv-looks-to-build-buzz-ahead-of-some-assembly-required-debut\/"},"modified":"2013-11-26T17:58:01","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:58:01","slug":"ytv-looks-to-build-buzz-ahead-of-some-assembly-required-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/11\/26\/ytv-looks-to-build-buzz-ahead-of-some-assembly-required-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"YTV looks to build buzz ahead of Some Assembly Required debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Nick Krewen \/ Playback Online<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Future Mark Zuckerbergs may find inspiration online and off in YTV\u2019s newest\u00a0 live action comedy, <em>Some Assembly Required<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Announced this week, the new series from Thunderbird Films will premiere on\u00a0 Monday Jan. 6 at 6:30, debuting alongside an innovative video mash-up tool with\u00a0 clips extracted from the series, and pre-promoted with an online game.<\/p>\n<p>Created by Dan Signer (<i>A.N.T. Farm, Mr. Young)<\/i> and Howard Nemetz\u00a0 (<em>Mr. Young, The Suite Life of Zack &amp; Cody<\/em>),\u00a0 <em>Some\u00a0 Assembly Required <\/em>was filmed in Burnaby, B.C. in front of a live\u00a0 audience. The series follows a group of kids who run a toy company,\u00a0 starring actor Kolton Stewart (<em>I Declare\u00a0War, The Next Step) <\/em>as the company\u2019s 14-year-old president.<\/p>\n<p>The series\u2019 digital strategy starts well before the show, with the goal of\u00a0 generating buzz for the premiere, said Alex Raff\u00e9, head of production at\u00a0 Vancouver-based Thunderbird.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning Dec. 16, prospective fans can go online and play a 20-level web\u00a0 game that was developed with Toronto\u2019s Relish Interactive. After the series\u00a0 begins its 26-episode run, the game will be supplemented by a new app and 20\u00a0 added levels of game-play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things YTV had asked for some form of digital element that was a\u00a0 pre-launch awareness driver,\u201d Raff\u00e9 told<em> Playback. <\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s very\u00a0 hard to make people aware of a show that they don\u2019t know anything about yet. So\u00a0 we came up with this game and we\u2019re going to release 20 levels on mobile and in\u00a0 mid-January, YTV\u2019s going to help us launch it on their <em>Game Drop<\/em> show\u00a0 and we\u2019re going to use a lot of social media behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once the show is underway, some of the show\u2019s video clips will be made\u00a0 available for viewers to create and assemble their own mash-up videos via a tool\u00a0 created by Toronto\u2019s Secret Location.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYTV was keen on something that had a video element,\u201d explained Raff\u00e9, whose\u00a0 shingle previously created the success stories <em>Mr. Young<\/em> and <em>A.N.T.\u00a0 Farm<\/em>. \u201cOne of <em>Some Assembly Required<\/em>\u2018s creators,\u00a0 Dan Signer,\u00a0 came up with something that he had seen on both <em>Mr. Young<\/em> and <em>A.N.T. Farm<\/em> &#8211; kids would make mash-up videos from where they would\u00a0 basically chop episodes that they downloaded from God-knows-where, to make up\u00a0 the stories they wanted to see, and then they\u2019d send them into social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe figured, if they kids are going to do it anyway, let\u2019s make it fun for\u00a0 them and give them some tools and visual effects like slo-mo and sound effects,\u00a0 and we\u2019ll upload huge cunks of chopped-up footage for them to play with,\u201d she\u00a0 adds.<\/p>\n<p>To finance the strategy, Raff\u00e9 said Corus supplied \u201ca huge chunk of CMF\u00a0 money, a more-than-decent license fee and some fairly substantive hosting and\u00a0 marketing and tech integration money\u201d that enabled a budget of $250,000. The\u00a0 Bell Media Fund also kicked in some financing.<\/p>\n<p>Jocelyn Hamilton, VP of programming and original production, Corus Kids, said\u00a0 YTV was attracted to the concept of <em>Some Assembly Required <\/em>because\u00a0 it \u201cwas something we thought most kids and families would\u00a0 find aspirational and fun.\u00a0 The idea that an unlikely group of teens could\u00a0 run a toy company and have the opportunity to create toys that kids would want\u00a0 to play with is an exciting and relatable fantasy for most kids (and parents).\u00a0 The funny antics of our misfit team is ultimately what will draw our audience\u00a0 in<strong>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs for the timeslot, Mondays are currently our premiere nights for most of\u00a0 our sitcoms and the holiday season is a great opportunity to promote our new\u00a0 original programming premiering in January, as most kids and families are home\u00a0 enjoying time together. With the success of <i>Sam &amp; Cat<\/i>, <i>Haunted\u00a0 Hathaways<\/i> and the <i>Thundermans<\/i>, <i>Some Assembly Required<\/i> will now\u00a0 round out our sitcom lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Krewen \/ Playback Online Future Mark Zuckerbergs may find inspiration online and off in YTV\u2019s newest\u00a0 live action comedy, Some Assembly Required. Announced this week, the new series from Thunderbird Films will premiere on\u00a0 Monday Jan. 6 at 6:30, debuting alongside an innovative video mash-up tool with\u00a0 clips extracted from the series, and pre-promoted &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/11\/26\/ytv-looks-to-build-buzz-ahead-of-some-assembly-required-debut\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>YTV looks to build buzz ahead of Some Assembly Required debut - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/11\/26\/ytv-looks-to-build-buzz-ahead-of-some-assembly-required-debut\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"YTV looks to build buzz ahead of Some Assembly Required debut - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nick Krewen \/ Playback Online Future Mark Zuckerbergs may find inspiration online and off in YTV\u2019s newest\u00a0 live action comedy, Some Assembly Required. 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