ZONA Design – The History Channel series Conspiracy?

For The History Channel series Conspiracy?, which separates fact from fiction to explore the true details behind history’s most intriguing events, the image makers at ZONA Design, Inc., created and produced a :30 image spot which rolled out mid-November.

Conspiracies have long captured the public’s imagination and the copy tells us that “facts provoke thought, thoughts raise questions, questions ignite controversy” and invites the viewer to “make up your own mind” and watch Conspiracy?, Sunday evenings on The History Channel.

The ZONA creatives evolved a series of stock black and white photographs, adding a combination of the red square and deconstructed type to create an ominous, conspiratorial environment. They treated and composited many layers of images, zooming in on some, reducing others, transitioning one to the other, in the process weaving a tapestry of suspense.

ZONA Director/Creative Director Zoa Martinez explained, “The idea is that conspiracy can happen anywhere, be perpetrated by anyone. I broke down the word ‘conspiracy,’ separating the Y, adding a question mark – Why, why, why are there so many unanswered questions. We employed fast cuts, continuously shifting compositions by moving the camera on select stills, in the process creating a sense of urgency and a feeling of agitation and constant motion. The images suggest numerous questions – Is that a clandestine rendezvous? What happened behind that police tape? Who is skulking in the shadows? Is someone in that sea of faces guilty, and of what? This is why we want the viewer to watch Conspiracy? and make up his or her own mind as to what really happened.”

“ZONA did some award-winning work for us recently and I was looking forward to working with them on the image campaign for Consipracy?,” stated The History Channel Producer/Writer Mike Scalere. “We gave ZONA a tricky assignment as they needed to come up with a concept that would cover all the shows in the series and not rely on images of Princess Di or Martin Luther King or other immediately recognizable icons. We needed a completely graphic look, a dark, mysterious air for the series and we had to be very clear not to say a conspiracy was afoot but rather to present images, have them act as evidence, and then have the viewer make up their own minds about the events they had just witnessed. ZONA created images, each with a bizarre twist, snapshots which force the viewer to examine every piece of the footage for clues. They did a wonderful job.”