Companion Podcasts

Companion podcasts are like a Director's Commentary version of a movie - but for a TV series.

HBO's series, Chernobyl, was hauntingly disturbing. As always, the Director had to make tough choices about what to cut and what to keep. What made the companion podcast so amazing, was that he was able to talk in much more depth about the background, the mood, the message they wanted to convey as well as the greater context and history. And since it was done on an episode-by-episode basis, each episode ended up essentially being an extra hour longer with so much additional value for the audience.

etflix did the same with their series, The Crown, and provided incredible detail and background info that would have overwhelmed a viewing audience it it were included in each TV episode.

Be on the lookout for 'hybrid' series coming out soon where the storyline is delivered as an alternating sequence of video and audio episodes. The 'Theatre of the Mind' let's producers create spectacular (audio) special effects at a fraction of the cost of CGI.