Vertical video platform Snips is converting shows starring Sarah Snook, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams, Liam Cunningham and Iain Glen into 45-second to two-minute episodes in 9:16 ratio, per Deadline. The platform is heading to MIPCOM next week to buy more.
Snips makes nothing. It crops. The platform takes existing shows, re-times them into 45-second to two-minute vertical episodes, and calls the process an adaptation. The new content in the entire announcement is the aspect ratio. The "adapted" shows are The Beautiful Lie from 2017, Two Weeks to Live from 2020, and a BBC drama from the early 2010s. Some of this is over a decade old.
The CEO's pitch: good shows are "like music, they just need to be on the most modern format." By that logic The Wire is a ringtone and Succession is a soundboard. The revenue-share deal is the real trick, though. No flat license fee, the actors get a cut of what the clips earn, which "incentivizes them to promote the work to fans and followers." A Game of Thrones star's "microdrama debut" is a marketing job. Post a 45-second crop of your own old show to your own followers, split the swipe revenue.
The 45-Second Chop is pitching it at MIPCOM in Cannes next week, hunting more libraries to crop. It does not need new stories. It needs your catalog, your face, and your thumb.
YOUR TURN: 45 seconds of your favorite show. Buy, or swipe?
PAPER TRAIL
- The exclusive: Deadline
- The August rights deal: Variety
- The app: Snips
- Store listing: Google Play
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