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To keep the buzz high around its latest series, Colony, TNT Latin America recruited Youtuber and filmmaker Nicolás Amelio-Ortíz to lead its Colonyzados (“Colonized”) project, in which he offers a lively review of each episode after it airs.
Colony, created by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Ryan Condal (Hercules), airs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean on TNT every Wednesday at 10 pm. (In the U.S., the series airs on USA.) The series is also available on the TNT GO app.
TNT, which reaches 57 million subscribers, is one of the leading cable networks in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its programming includes scripted series, local and international super-productions and sports.
The Colonyzado videos each run between three to five minutes and are available on TNT Latin America’s YouTube channel and on TNT GO. In each of the ten exclusive episodes, Amelio-Ortíz reveals interesting facts and secrets about the show, comments on the series’ cast, authors and technical teams, and analyzes the plot, special effects and direction.
Amelio-Ortíz is the founder of ZEPfilms, the most widely viewed YouTube channel about film and entertainment in Argentina and one of the most popular in Latin America with more than 500,000 subscribers. He says the development process with Turner “was quite quick. The idea was to promote the new series, that was going to air on TNT, using a collaborative show online, presented by someone working in this kind of media,” he says. “I think ZEPfilms was the right choice, because it is one of the few film and fiction channels aimed at an Internet-based audience.”
The work is divided into two parts: Amelio-Ortíz is in charge of content creation and TNT handles the production in collaboration with the agency FAV!, the first digital entertainment company for the so called “connected generation,” focusing on Latin Americans and U.S. Latinos. Together, they work on the artwork, the video recording and the editing.
Amelio-Ortíz is an avid follower of American Youtube channels that review and comment on video games, such as JonTron or Game Theory, so he’s used to the Internet’s fast-paced style in which words are often taken out of context. In the case of Colonyzados, Amelio-Ortíz says the format “is quite different from that of ZEPfilms, but the main idea is still there.” At FAV!, where the reviews are recorded weekly, they went for a format that feels more like TV than YouTube.
The relaxed presentation includes a call to action in which Amelio-Ortíz encourages viewers to consider what might be coming next and to leave their comments on the platform. He also motivates users to interact through other TNT social networks and to subscribe to the YouTube channel, for which there is a special frame at the end of the video.
TNT Latin America’s Twitter and Facebook pages also invite followers to join the YouTube channel and followColonyzados.
As an influencer in the digital world, Amelio-Ortíz also amplifies the conversation through his own Twitter and Facebook accounts and through ZEPfilms, his YouTube channel. On it, he has created “10 fun and interesting facts about Colony,” a special promotional video in which he presents the filming process of Colony and invites his audience to be part of Colonyzados.
“We want to create synergy between the two brands, between the people who watch TNT and those who watch ZEPfilms,” says Amelio-Ortíz. “We have not finished the action strategy yet, but based on the reach of my Twitter account, I feel the campaign has been successful. It was a wise move to work together, because if my audience watches a TV program, that is most likely TNT and vice versa,” he adds. As for YouTube’s impact on the entertainment industry in Latin America, Amelio-Ortíz thinks that “it’s not a passing phenomenon, web-based entertainment is here to stay. If it’s not on YouTube, then on some other Internet platform.”
To read this story in Spanish, go here.
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