The Defiant Ones

HBO

The Defiant Ones

The official website for HBO’s The Defiant Ones. A docu-series about Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s unlikely music partnership and their impact on contemporary culture.

Background

The Resistance

I was contracted by Deep Focus to generate a one page site promoting the HBO Documentary series– The Defiant Ones. The agency had presented four primary sections: a snapchat snapcode promoting the documentary, hidden bonus content, user generated gifs, and influencer experiences.

Bells & Whistles

The Features

Snapcode

Once landing on the site, the user is presented with snapping the Defiant Ones snapcode- which unlocks the official Defiant Ones lens.

Disruption

Unlock bonus content, by continuing to watch a few jarring animations.

User-generated content

Users could record their own 10 second video, fill in the black for the phrase “You will never _______.” and receive sharable animated gif that contains the same type of effect as the above.

Listen to some influencers.

HBO had 6 influencers record some of their defiant experiences to share.

The Tech

Loading up the toolbox

This one page site was packed with different technologies. React was used for the video capture process, nodejs was used to make the ugc content, and intense CSS3 animations for the glitchy-ness effects.

Considerations

The UGC content was the challenge that stood out the most. Making a video capture tool that will only be X amount of secs of recording, that will not only work cross-browser, but cross devices.

Related Work

Night of too many stars

HBO

Night of too many stars

Night of Too Many Stars is a fundraising telethon for autism. It has been held every two or three years since 2003. The event was founded by Robert Smigel after learning that his son was diagnosed with autism.

Background

Deep Focus

The folks at Deep Focus were tasked to put up a one page site promoting the upcoming event ‘The Night of Too Many Stars’ being held at Madison Square Garden. The site was to promote upcoming talent, stream live the night of, and highlight the event once it was over.

The Result

Night of too many stars

The Main Event

At Madison Square Garden

It was requested that I be present during the live production to help assist if something went awry. Everything went perfectly as planned. My task the for the night was to switch between three different versions of the site; a countdown to the show, integrating the YouTube Live stream, and reverting back to the original . Afterwards, HBO provided highlight videos which were added to complete the project.