Joe Ortiz
How do you brainstorm the type of promotion you’d like to see for each individual show? Does each one have its own creative team?
Everything is created and conceptualized internally for all of our show watchers. So we have, like, an internal creative agency, if you will, at MTV. And then what we’ll do is we’ll assign teams inside of that to work on specific shows. So we have an internal team that works on all the [material] for Shannara and then we have a separate team, for instance, that would concept ideas for Teen Wolf.
And then those teams kind of change. Say you might work with one person on one project and then you could work with that person on a different project. And it’s just nice, because that kind of collaboration is fresh every single time. People are bouncing ideas off of each other, so we like to keep those partnerships kind of rotating, which is fun.
And do you plot out all of the onscreen promotion as well as social marketing plans as well?
The same group that works internally on the creative, has a social component to it. So part of our social team is part of the creative team here at MTV, which is really unique I think. And why we do such great integrative work in that stage. Especially around this title. So yeah, it’s a full team and the social team is as integrated as a writer or editor in the process.
MTV has made a conscious decision to start incorporating more scripted drama into their programming, does that change the type of promotional material you want to cultivate?
Yeah, I think it does. It just gives you other opportunities. So you’re creating narratives, and there is a new narrative in the drama space or the fantasy space, so that can open you up to a lot of different possibilities than potentially you can have in the format of reality. Which you’re really trying to create around that specific person or around that character. Yeah there’s different opportunities and advantages on either side, so we’ve been able to create a lot of different types of promotions and different partnerships based off the scripted programming that we have, than maybe we would have done in the past just around reality.
What stood out to you surrounding Shannara? Was there a central element you wanted to build your promotion around?
We really wanted to play with the epic fantasy element of Shannara, which is at the heart of the story. But what’s really unique about Shannara is that it actually takes place on earth in the Pacific Northwest, so we wanted to kind of bridge that gap between fantasy and that dystopian future that was really special to the Shannara world. We wanted it to be equal parts fantasy and a little bit of our world in the future. So that became a lot of what the central art became for us.
And then I think the Ellcrys tree is a real big central part of the storyline. It really is the centerpiece of the premise and of the quest now. So that became another place that we really wanted to explore. I think that’s where we kind of started to align on — how could we bring the Ellcrys Tree to life, and how can we bring that fantasy world and elements of the world that are so special for Shannara into the real world. And that’s kind of where we started exploring real world experiences and that’s where we ended up on the Ellcrys kind of tree lot that’s happening as a stunt in New York City.
MTV has worked with Kevin O’Callaghan before, so he’s obviously in your roster of potential partnerships, but why did he stand out as the perfect person for this sort of collaboration?
Kevin is a complete maverick in the 3D-Design world. And we have had such a phenomenal partnership with him over the years that when we were thinking about Shannara and how we could bring it to life in the real world, his name immediately came up because we wanted to work with him [again]. He can make very small things still monumental to the world and he has a really great playfulness and whimsy, a complete match for his artistry. So we were really excited to partner with him.
He is a long time friend of MTV. We’ve had a long history of collaborating with many award winning artists, and I think that’s true of our partnership with Kevin. I think when we wanted to bring it to life and we were thinking about how do you bring fantasy into the real world, Kevin’s name immediately was top of the list. He was our first choice of calls.
Other than just learning about the show or creating buzz, what do you hope to gain from this exhibit in particular?
For me it’s less about marketing the show, although that will happen, for me I just think that if it’s powerful — and it will be — it will spark a sense of imagination in anyone. And that’s really what Shannara does. It’s really what high fantasy does when it’s at its best. So I think with this exhibit, I hope, people will take away in their imagination of what that world could be.
See the exhibit in person
If you’re in the New York area this weekend and would like to see the display for yourself, you can check it out today until 8:00 p.m. at the Gansevoort Plaza or this weekend from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Union Square and 69th & Broadway.
For those who can’t witness the display in person, you can still soak up a little of the Shannara magic by tracking the hashtag #ShannaraDowntown online or by watching the show’s two hour premiere January 5, 2016 at 10 p.m. on MTV.
Additional reporting by Tariq Kyle.
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