Over the last couple of months, you may have seen bits and pieces of actor John Krasinski’s YouTube show Some Good News.
What you may not know is that two Calgary-based startups played a role in bringing the show to life.
Krasinski, perhaps best known for his role as Jim Halpert on NBC’s The Office, launched the web series in late-March after the COVID-19 pandemic had effectively shut down Hollywood.
The show, which Krasinski hosts from his home, consists entirely of feel-good news stories and often features various celebrities as the guests.
To support the show, Krasinski’s production company Sunday Night Productions needed to fill multiple positions, including writers, video editors and social media experts. But where can you find all of that in one place?
The answer is Calgary’s Communo compound.
The platform, which CEO and co-founder Ryan Gill says is commonly referred to as “LinkedIn meets Tinder,” is a professional matchmaking service that helps connect projects and talent.
Gill says that a “friend of a friend” told Krasinski about Communo and how he may be able to use it to find all of the positions required for Some Good News.
“This company, Sunday Night Productions, which no one knew what it was, puts up these jobs — bing, bing, bing — all in a row, for this project called Some Good News,” Gill said.
“I heard [in] three days all of those jobs were filled, and a few days later the first episode, which is now internet famous, went live.”
The company that was selected to establish and manage Some Good News‘ social media presence was Arcade Studios, a social media marketing and content production agency.
“We’re huge (The) Office fans, so as soon as we saw the post on Communo, we couldn’t believe there was an opportunity like this,” partners at Arcade, Mitzi and Mike Payne said.
The show produced eight episodes, but the one that stands out most to the pair was the Some Good News prom episode, which was broadcast live online.
Mitzi says Krasinski wanted to create the episode in order to give graduating high school students their moment to shine, as many convocation ceremonies had been cancelled due to the pandemic.
To build anticipation for the event, Arcade worked closely with Tik Tok to create an invitation that was ultimately shared on many news channels and on social media as well.
“Minutes before the episode went live, we had hundreds of thousands of people logged in and chatting on the YouTube link waiting for the prom to happen,” Mitzi said.
“It was a really amazing event.”
While Krasinski recently sold the show to CBS, Arcade will continue to work as part of the production team once new episodes being airing again.