Tim Federle is no stranger to Disney+. The acclaimed storyteller has been the backbone of the streaming platform, giving us the first Disney+ Original Series, High School Musical – The Musical: The Series. Now, over half a decade later, Federle is back and better than ever with one of the newest innovations in television: short-form bingeable episodes. His newest series, Coven Academy, is being broken down into 21 smaller, more digestible “chapters” that run about 15 minutes long or so. It’s a fun experiment and depending on how audiences react to it, we could be in for a whole new form of media and how we consume it.
Federle, along with his Coven Academy cast, participated in a press conference where the subject of the series’ episode lengths was a big point of discussion. When asked why episodes were made in this format, Federle said “They are shorter chapters, but if you binge it, it’s like five-plus hours. At no point when we were breaking these stories were we like, ‘How do we do this in 15 minutes?’ It was really, ‘How do we tell a season’s worth of stories that hopefully then launch you into the next season, and the next, and the next, in a slow-burn kind of way?’ It’s sort of an old-fashioned genre show in a new-fashioned storytelling technique, with some really fresh talent.”
He adds that he loves how the story of Coven Academy has an endless nature to it when watching, saying “What’s so fun about series versus movies is that it’s more like real life. Just when you think you’re at the end of the story, you’re not. Most stories end well, but if your story is going really badly right now, you’re not at the end. I love telling stories that go on and on.”
Federle also mentioned some of his favourite inspirations for the show, noting it’s CW-esque tone, saying. “I grew up watching Charmed, The Craft, Hocus Pocus, and those kind of vaguely horror shows were always such a fun world to live in. If HSMTMTS was a tribute to Waiting For Guffman, this is a tribute to Charmed, Dawson’s Creek, and The Vampire Diaries.”
Read the synopsis for Coven Academy:
Practicing magic is only one element of surviving high school. Set against the haunted backdrop of New Orleans, Coven Academy follows three teenage witches and their charming warlock classmates as they navigate friendship, grief, secrets, and the extraordinary pressures that come with discovering who they really are.
Coven Academy releases on Freeform today and on Disney+ tomorrow!
