From Denette Wilford of Huffington Post Canada:
Kristin Lehman: ‘Motive’ Success Doesn’t Surprise Me
HuffPost Canada TV spoke with Lehman about “Motive”‘s success thus far, ABC’s seemingly radically different take on the show and how Flynn and Vega will never be together. Ever. Continue reading.
“ABC, they cut good trailers. It’s fun, it’s slick, it’s awesome. But it’s such a dramatic departure from the way we promoted it.” The way CTV promoted it!?!: “Motive. Sunday night. Watch it!” Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but if I’m am… Tough. No-holds-barred. Deal with it!
You’re just jealous Bell doesn’t hate you as much as they hate me. If they listened to the podcast they totally would, though.
If Bell heard half the stuff we said on the Dyscultured podcast about them, methinks I’d be on their naughty list.
In all seriousness, though, that’s one of the most interesting parts of the conversation. I saw the ABC promo several times during watching TV down here last week. (I’m in L.A. right now) and I was struck by how light, and how funny both it and Rookie Blue are meant to feel.
Motive is by no means a laff riot show. But the ABC promo zips. It brings you in, it’s “sticky” — and you know, it’s not so much that the promo’s job is to accurately reflect the content of the show — it’s meant to get you to the starting gate. And U.S. network promos are masters at that. (And even THEN 80% of the shows fail.)
I think Canadian networks often cut too-earnest promos that are driven all by v/o and then they play them to death and wear them out.
U.S. nets — especially FOX, also do this genius sneaky thing sometimes where they cut footage from the next TWO episodes into the promo — so it doesn’t spoil or give away what the plot is, and the mixing of moments can even be a bit of a misdirect.
There’s a science to it. They’re very good at it. I learn things about my craft all the time watching programs from all over the world. I wish I had the sense that Canadian promo was as open to learning how to do things a little better.