Dead of Night: A Bazelevs-Produced Zombie Series for Snapchat
“Mobile is now the dominant medium for telling stories and consuming content,” said Snapchat original content head Sean Mills at the first-ever Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles. “In 2019, mobile will surpass television in time spent for U.S. adults. This transformation is creating massive new opportunities.”
Snapchat wants to make use of these opportunities so they’ve announced 10 new shows for their video content series Snap Originals, including a zombie series from Bazelevs (creators of the Profile film) in association with Hooked.
Dead of Night tells the story of a teenage girl who, armed with only her phone, must escape a quarantined city full of zombies. Shot in screenlife, it takes place entirely from the point of view of the smartphone screen. The series is based on a story from the popular app Hooked, which specializes in narratives as a series of daily updates in the format of instant messages. Scripted series is scheduled for release in October 2019.
All Snap Originals are shot in vertical format to fit onto smartphone screens. Each episode lasts five to seven minutes, and cannot be rewatched after viewing.
However, it’s not the first vertical screenlife series by Bazelevs. In 2016, the first smartphone-only documentary series, 1968.digital, premiered at Cannes Film Festival in the Russian pavilion as one of the most promising formats for online platforms.
