Chiller Network collaborated with Mr. Wonderful to develop, design and produce a series of three :10 brand IDs. Chiller, a division of NBC/Universal, specializes in horror and suspense programming.

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"We wanted the feel to be scary, fun and very cool without being gory,” says Shea Pepper, creative director at Chiller. She presented Mr. Wonderful creative director Beirne Lowry and executive producer Damien Henderson with the concept: the IDs would use audio waveforms embedded in spooky graphics to tell an aural and visual story.

“The concept is based on EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena,” explains Lowry. “It’s how ghost hunters pick up the sounds of spirits and supernatural events through audio recording. A visual representation of an active audio waveform has a spiking ‘alive’ look and feel to it. By hearing sound snippets being ‘tuned in’ like a radio, the audio would effectively tie in with the graphic to create a strong impression for the ID.”

Lowry and Henderson split the project into two stages. First, they enlisted composer/sound designer Ted Gannon from sister company Northern Lights to set the scene. A longtime horror fan, Gannon scored three original soundscapes tailored to different themes: the slasher, the zombie and the supernatural.

Once the audio was in place, Lowry and the Mr. Wonderful team enhanced the waveforms by incorporating stop-motion sequences and designing 2D/3D animation. “We cast our staff as brain-eating zombies and knife-slashing crazies” using the in-house greenscreen, continues Lowry. Shot as stop-motion stills, the team then re-drew and “Chiller-ized” the animation frame by frame in an ink-splatter, posterized style.

“The look and feel is such that as the sound intensifies, the images literally emerge from inside or behind the waveforms, initially having that sort of scratchy-line audio-waveform feel to them, and then they cross the boundary of the waveform for the ‘scare’ moment,” adds Henderson. “The treatment of the logo is gritty and was intended to come out of the waveforms the way the scary imagery does—so the viewer might think another monster or creature is going to emerge, but it is then only the logo.”

“Mr. Wonderful came up with three scenarios that quickly told a story and showcased the Chiller brand,” adds Pepper.

The spots are currently airing on Chiller Network.