Smart Screen
Vast Media Smart Screen Round-Up: VMAs, ‘The Defenders’ and an Eclipse
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Here’s a run-down of recent second screen-related entertainment items, via Berlin-based research and consulting company Vast Media.
• Ahead of the Aug. 27 “Video Music Awards,” MTV offered up a collection of second-screen offerings, mostly tied into the network’s famous moon-man icon. For Facebook’s new Camera Effects Platform, MTV offered a VMA Moon Person filter, available up until the awards show’s broadcast, which featured space audio effects, an astronaut’s helmet, and a timer, counting down to the show’s broadcast.
Additionally, MTV partnered with virtual reality firm 8i to create 3D moon man holograms for use with the mobile augmented reality app Holo, allowing users to add the holograms to both photos and videos. Meant to be shared via social media, the holograms feature the MTV moon people doing various dances.
Lastly, MTV also offered up a livestreamed “Fan Cam Live” for the awards show, via Facebook Live. Featuring four different streams, the live event allowed fans to interact with artists, with guests interviewed by two MTV hosts. The live-streams also featured fan polls.
• To help promote its latest Marvel series “The Defenders,” Netflix’s French arm partnered with creative agency Biborg to create “The Defenders: L’escape Game Live,” which streamed on Facebook, YouTube and Periscope. The game featured four French celebrities who were tasked with completing a show-themed mission, with viewers offering advice during the live stream.
• Following a July rebranding, Oxygen Media in August offered up an interactive thriller game via Facebook Live, dubbed “The Pursuit.” The game tasked viewers with solving a crime, based on photo and video clues — including a 20-minute, live, 360-degree clip — offered on Facebook. Fans were able to look through interrogation videos, security footage, and police reports, before interrogating suspects themselves Aug. 18 during a 30-minute live video.
• To help cover the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, CNN offered up a live, 4K virtual reality stream — dubbed “The Eclipse of the Century” — that took viewers to the spots in the U.S. where the total eclipse occurred. Available via CNN’s apps, web sites and Facebook page, the two-hour live event featured NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and included real-time graphics and close-ups views of the sun.
