Throughout his formidable career, Morris has made a lasting mark on Canadian reality television. Starting with So You Think You Can Dance Canada, the hit dance show based off the popular American series So You Think You Can Dance, Morris’ instincts as a storyteller greatly connected with audiences. It wasn’t long after this when Morris started working on several hit shows, like Big Brother Canada, Top Chef Canada, and The Real Housewives of Toronto, all of which achieved great success thanks to this talented producer and director.
“As a director, I try to make the image on screen look as good as it can, while also telling the best story. It’s a total balancing act,” said Morris. “As a producer, I think the biggest thing you can do is be a creative problem solver. The client, or the TV network, or whoever has a vision, and you have to execute it by any means necessary. You have to find the best location, the best talent, the best whatever and all make it work under the circumstances. It’s like a game of Tetris where everything has to line up.”
If it is a game, Morris is winning. During his time as a Digital Producer on the series Hockey Wives, Morris directed and produced all of the digital content used to promote and engage the audience in the show. The success of Hockey Wives has extended beyond the linear airings. In the three seasons, Morris has created over three-hundred pieces of digital content, along with a social engagement strategy for the audience. Some of the milestones he has achieved with the show include: creating and producing the first network live-stream event to promote the second season of the series, growing the series social engagement 300% season after season, and gaining over 10,000 engagements on average per video.
Hockey Wives is an original documentary series which follows the wives and girlfriends of some of professional hockey's most celebrated and up-and-coming players over the course of an NHL season. In the beginning, Morris was a story editor during its first season. He knew the show and characters inside and out. As captivating as the traditional television show was, he knew that there was a huge piece of the viewer experience missing: the online story. He therefore took the lead in creating a vast online presence for the show.
While working as digital producer, Morris was responsible for every single aspect of what he created. He wrote the content, pitched the ideas to the network, directed the pieces, and then edited them.
“Being responsible for everything was not only a lot of fun, but there was a huge amount of pressure to deliver. I couldn’t complain if the camera work wasn’t up to par, because I shot it! I couldn’t complain about the editor, because I was the one behind the keyboard editing the darn thing,” he joked.
The content that Morris created is not your typical online video. It wasn’t a commercial or quick video of a cast member saying what audiences could look forward to the next week. It was “compassion content”, which is essentially online content to augment the traditional television show. Morris was single-handedly able to build a whole series of content that complimented the series, and built on the characters in a way that had never been done before.
“Online content for a TV show shouldn’t be a throw away, it’s an opportunity to retain an already hungry audience that loves the show, and make the fandom bigger and better. Online content allows users to connect to your shows in different way versus how a traditional broadcast show can. We explore the weird, the wacky and the unusual online, and that makes characters more relatable and likeable,” Morris described. “We’re seeing now, more and more, that traditional production companies and networks are finally waking up and seeing that online can be just as important, and in my opinion, more important than traditional media – especially for capturing the younger demographic.”
Morris was brought onto Hockey Wives by Producer Amy Regan. The two had worked on various projects over the years, such as So You Think You Can Dance Canada, Big Brother Canada, and NHL Revealed: A Season Like No Other, and Morris was always her “go to” guy as a one-stop production shop. Before Hockey Wives, the two had just finished producing the Canadian Country Music Awards with host Jessi Cruickshank. Regan knew what Morris was capable of in terms of shooting, directing and editing and she approached him with the concept of taking full control over all online, digital, and social media content. It was a large ask, but she knew that Morris would be able to add a fresh vision to the challenge.
“Brett is really in a class of his own when it comes to being a well-rounded producer in the television industry. As the digital producer for Hockey Wives, Brett singlehandedly came up with the creative concept, planned, coordinated, shot, directed, produced and edited every online piece for Hockey Wives Season 2 and 3. He really is the total package. Brett’s talents and abilities make him the perfect fit for any production team,” said Amy Regan, Line Producer on Hockey Wives.
When Morris took on the role of Digital Producer at the start of season 2, there was a huge trend of vloggers coming onto the scene. Before that, all digital content that was made for television had the mandate that pieces “must be short, must be snappy, and grab your attention within the first 5 seconds.” Morris wanted to strip all that back, and prove that digital viewers do in fact have an attention span. He believed digital audiences wanted longer content, because that’s they connect with the characters on screen. His instincts were right.
While filming the online spots, Morris got to travel to six different cities across North America to film “a day in the life” segments with the cast members of Hockey Wives. This allowed him to really experience the cities, and because of the segments he got to cook a Philly cheese steak in Philadelphia, dog walk along the beach in Orange County California, play “The Newlywed” game in San Jose, and more, all making for fun and engaging content.
“The great part about it all was that the husbands, who are all professional hockey players in the NHL, were down to have fun with us. Stanley Cup Winner Kris Letang was so excited to play “the Newlywed Game” with us, even though he had a big game later that day. A lot of the time, these guys don’t let their guard down much with cameras around, but seeing them engage in such a fun manner with us was a total win for the project,” said Morris.
You can view some samples of Morris’ groundbreaking work with Hockey Wives here.