SPH Media launches first microdrama, horror-comedy CONNECTED

Your next binge-watch is here. SPH Media has launched its first microdrama, CONNECTED, a 24-episode Singapore horror-comedy created by SPH Content Lab and sponsored by Singtel. The first of its three stories is now available on STOMP, HardwareZone and Singtel’s social channels.

Starring Fly Entertainment artistes, actor Fauzi Azzhar and singer Yan Xin, the series is inspired by spooky stories submitted to STOMP. It follows two unlikely investigators chasing strange happenings through familiar corners of Singapore.

Blending local folklore, familiar settings and distinctly Singaporean humour, CONNECTED gives a fresh, contemporary spin to the stories we grew up with. It also brings together storytelling, live-action filmmaking, original creature design, VFX and emerging AI technology.

“It might be fiction as entertainment, but threaded through CONNECTED is Singtel’s very real role in keeping people connected to friends, family and community,” said Lynette Poh, Singtel’s head of brand, engagement and loyalty, of the partnership.

“The horror-comedy genre also gave CONNECTED plenty of room for new ways to tell familiar Singapore stories, and turn everyday settings into something stranger and visually unexpected. Technology became part of how the creative team brought that world to screen.”

For SPH Content Lab, the series was also a chance to experiment with a new entertainment format. Every creature in its world began as an original sketch by the lab’s artists. These were combined with original photography and live-action footage, then developed through a hybrid VFX workflow with production partners Editlounge and Gengis AI.

“Singapore has always had a great tradition of spooky storytelling,” said Phin Wong, head of the content and solutioning division at SPH Media.

“CONNECTED takes that very familiar part of our culture and plays with what it can become in a contemporary short-form series – mixing horror and comedy, local stories and ‘hantu’ folklore, and a visual world that moves between the familiar and the fantastical.”