SANTA MONICA — Full-service, design-centric production company King and Country (www.kingandcountry.tv) has created the new on-air identity for horror network Chiller. The visually arresting rebrand package emphasizes Chiller's new mainstream horror/thriller content with the promise of compelling, high-quality entertainment, while still honoring the classic tagline, “Scary Good.”
Chiller On-Air Rebrand from
King and Country on
Vimeo.
“In the time leading up to the rebrand, Chiller became the only network dedicated to horror entertainment 24/7,” says Shea Pepper, VP creative, marketing, Syfy/Chiller. “We wanted to fully embrace that identity, and King and Country gave us an on-air environment as premium as our new mainstream content.”
The goal for K&C was to create a dynamic, contemporary graphics toolkit that truly possessed the soul of the Chiller network. Using a combination of live-action and VFX, K&C took Chiller's signature “sliced” screen look to a gritty level with photoreal cracked glass and creepy environments, such as a forest, an abandoned house, a victorian bedroom and a subway tunnel. The transitional device of mirrored footage allowed for endless graphically-composed scenes.
Within each promo environment, an ominous character — a man with a chainsaw, an Edwardian nurse, a stalker or a forest nymph - randomly jumps out at the viewer from various places on the screen, depending on how the promo is edited. Animated shards of glass crack and slide to become the base for navigation of programming-related information.
K&C developed a comprehensive messaging system that unified and encompassed all of Chiller’s current branding systems and looks, including their three signature nights: “Throwback Thursday,” “Friday Night Premiere,” and “Don’t Watch Alone.” It was important that the graphics toolkit not only be highly flexible and unified for a broad range of promotional material and packages, but also align with Chiller's overall brand identity.
The environments were created entirely in CG in After Effects and Cinema 4D. The characters were shot against a greenscreen during a one-day shoot in Hollywood. K&C shot the live-action on a 6K Red Epic Dragon camera, which also provided Chiller with print assets. Hum Music provided sound effects for the package.