American Idol and FOX are beginning a new feature, in conjunction with FOX comedies, The Mindy Project and New Girl called “Still Rolling” that will allow Idol fans to see what really happens after a contestant is eliminated.
The feature will be promoted during Thursday’s Idol. After, you’ll see video of what went down minutes after the singer was booted from the show, in spots set to air during special airings of New Girl and The Mindy Project.
“When we locked the New Girl and Mindy episodes behind Idol, the marketing team tried to come up some ideas that we thought could help pull some of those Idol viewers through the night and into the comedies,” Shannon Ryan, Fox’s EVP of marketing and communications, told The Hollywood Reporter. “We thought it could be interesting to bring that concept — seeing those sort of raw, real, intimate post-show moments and reactions — to our air in these quick pops throughout the night.”
“All the judges are different when they’re not behind the desk, so this will let viewers at home catch an inside glimpse of how they are with the contestants after the show is over, especially on elimination night when emotions run so high,” said Ryan Seacrest.
It’s going to be a tricky feat to pull off.
The show will employ three cameras to do so along with a job arm. Then, Ryan explains, “Using Idol’s EVS system, a special ops team will capture the line feed, select the 15-second snippets that we want to highlight, and then quickly get that back to the control room. There, lower third messaging will be dropped in, and it will be fed over to our network operations.”
Look for the first video to air around 9:14 p.m. EDT and the second five minutes later. The two remaining videos will follow at around 9:44 p.m. and 9:52 p.m. EDT.
So, is this a one night deal? Because next week, Glee will return to it’s regularly scheduled time slot at 9/8c pm and will air uninterrupted until May 9.
ETA: Yes, these are basically the videos that americanidol.com post after the show, but they aren’t edited and ready to go as quickly.
