Misfits

Misfits Online Experience Splash Page

We worked with Clerkenwell Films and Channel 4 to develop the Misfits Online Experience, a cross-platform campaign to promote E4’s BAFTA award-winning comedy drama Misfits.

Winner of the BIMA Multiplatform Award in 2010. Nominated for the AOP Best Cross-Media Award and the Broadcast Digital Best Multiplatform Award.

In a UK television first, Misfits’ main characters were featured on Twitter and Facebook – often active and live during the programme’s broadcast as well as between shows. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr accounts and Youtube channels were all managed by Six to Start, and written and devised with Clerkenwell’s writers and producers.

We also created a hub for the Misfits Online Experience, and designed and developed seven exclusive panoramic scenes for each episode. Every week, the show’s audience could step into the world of Misfits and collect objects to unlock awards, extra story, and behind-the-scenes material. Ultimately, viewers could unlock a bonus game, bridging the way to hidden scenes and characters, with the final seventh scene acting as an exclusive online conclusion to the series.

The Numbers

  • 100,000+ fans for the brand-new Misfits Facebook page
  • 3,000+ tweets per hour during broadcast
  • Almost 1 million unique visitors to the Misfits website- more than the show’s viewing audience
  • At its peak, more online forum activity than ITV’s X Factor
  • Our strong social media content, with 22,000+ Twitter followers, encouraged viewing of follow-on episodes

What People Said

Left Right
“From the moment we saw the scripts we knew that this was something that would work brilliantly for online audiences. By using the freshest of writers and production companies in Howard Overman and Clerkenwell and hottest digital talent in Six to Start and Preloaded, we’ve delivered a uniquely engaging, playful and hopefully sometimes hilarious exploration of the drama and its characters, which, with Clerkenwell’s direction, has the DNA of the series running through it.”

Louise Brown, Head of Cross Platform Commissioning, Channel 4

“Misfits will embrace, in the words of Channel Four’s Steve Berry, ‘transmedia storytelling’. This is storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a viewer’s understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, it attempts to create “entrypoints” through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. And, perhaps most coolly of all, audiences will be able to officially follow the protagonists on Twitter.”

Generation Star Wars

“New E4 drama Misfits is to be the first UK programme to have characters tweeting live on Twitter when it is aired next month.”

Media Guardian

From Pitch to Live

Our first pitch in response to the Misfits RFP was heavily story-based. We talked about setting up the world of Misfits, exploring a backstory set against the 1987 Great Storm, telling a rich story across social media platforms including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook – but all aggregated on E4.com. Then, 3 weeks prior to TX, we’d start exposing show characters and introducing an online character, Cassandra. During TX, we planned on launching chat applications and social games that the Misfits audience could play during live TX.

We threw all of that out of the window and started again for the second round.

The grand plan for the second round pitch revolved around something we ended up calling the Spine – the core of activity that sat on E4.com. Around the Spine would orbit a casual game, Facebook glue and social media exploded story. All of it, though, against a really strong attitude, exemplified by Dean’s mood board:

Once we got the green light, the Spine evolved a lot during the build process. It was originally envisaged as a cinematic interactive experience, teasing scenes from forthcoming episodes, like an interactive trailer. We wanted to build an editorially relevant collectible game around each scene – so that the audience would have a genuine chance to connect with the compelling characters and world in a meaningful and deeper way.

We were lucky to get the scripts pretty much as they were being written. Here’s an early sketch from Kim Plowright, our producer, on how we planned to treat the end of the series:

There’s a lot that didn’t get made. There were quite a few designs for Facebook applications that – in the end – neither we nor Channel 4 thought would be just right. The project was complicated enough already – here’s an overview schedule that incorporates the missing Asbo app:

Credits

Six to Start

  • Dan Hon (Exec Producer)
  • Kim Plowright (Producer, Project Management)
  • Robin Ray (Assistant Producer)
  • Claire Bateman (Junior Game Designer)
  • Jo Roach (Creative Consultant)
  • Antonio Gould (Producer, Sponsored Content)
  • Lisa Long (Finance)
  • Dean Vipond (Graphics)
  • Dave King (Photography)
  • Gary Moyes (Photography)
  • Phil Gyford (Technical Development)
  • Lee Maguire (Technical Operations)
  • Ben Edwards (Writing)
  • Sam Leifer (Writing)
  • Rose Heiney (Writing)
  • Roopali Sharma (Production Intern)

Channel 4 and E4

  • Louise Brown (Cross Platform Commissioner)
  • Camilla Marshall (Commissioning Editor, Drama)
  • Robert Wulff-Cochrane (Head of Development, Drama)
  • Jody Smith (Editor, E4.com)
  • Sarah Rogers (Project Manager)
  • Paul Edwards (Technical Project Manager)
  • Layla West (E4.com)
  • Jade Raad (Sponsorship Executive)
  • Sarah Martin (Marketing Manager, E4)
  • Andy Pipes (Digital Marketing Manager)

Clerkenwell Films

  • Petra Fried (Head of Drama)
  • Chloe Moss (Producer, Misfits Online)
  • Alice Lusher (Assistant Producer, Misfits Online)
  • China Moo Young (Director)