‘Hidden Canyons’ Is Our New TikTok Obsession

The next time you are mindlessly scrolling through TikTok, take a moment and realize there may be more to the videos you’re watching.

Hidden Canyons is an LGBTQ micro-series created by Brant Rotnem and co-directed by Fawzia Mirza that explores the LGBTQ space with honesty and creativity. Filled with memorable characters and jaw-dropping twists and turns, each one-minute episode packs a major punch.

Not only is the series changing how people think about media and storytelling in the digital age, but it’s giving representation to LGBTQ stories, characters, and performers as well.

“I was just another struggling creative in L.A. that wanted to get his work out there,” Rotnem says. “At the same time, I saw a lot of my own friends and members of the LGBTQ community not being hired at the same rate as our cis, straight counterparts. I wanted to create something that could provide visibility and employment for people within the community, and I did a lot of thinking about what social media was and how much more time we started to spend on social media.

“How we were consuming these small snippets of people’s lives and getting very invested in people we didn’t know. Many of them are doing stuff that we wouldn’t ordinarily pay much attention to, like washing their hair, talking about their skincare routines, walking their dogs, and I thought, if we inject a little bit of narrative into this, that could be really cool because we could fit it in relatively naturally within the scroll of people’s social media feeds.”

Debuting on Instagram in June 2020, Hidden Canyons’ 26-episode first season received major acclaim and won “Best Episodic” at Outfest 2020. It was also an “Official Selection” at NewFest 2020.

According to Rotnem, he wasn’t surprised that the show did well, but he was surprised where its audience came from.

“We originally designed Hidden Canyons for Instagram, but Instagram made some changes to their algorithm shortly before the series launched,” he explains. “They weren’t super favorable to new creators, so unless you’re spending a lot of money on Instagram, it was very hard to get your content in front of new people. We relaunched the series on TikTok about six months later, and I think our first episode on TikTok got more views than the entire series did on Instagram.”

Rotnem describes TikTok’s “great” algorithm, which favors content that users engage with. He said, because people are viewing the videos all the way through, sharing with friends, and commenting, TikTok’s algorithm showed Hidden Canyons to exponentially more users.

“We went from zero to 100,000 followers almost overnight on TikTok,” Rotnem says.

Rotnem also plays Troy Maddox in the show and stars alongside an incredible ensemble of actors including Jeremy Glazer, Sean Samuels, Tonatiuh, Jamie Renee Smith, Sufe Bradshaw, and Quei Tann.

Glazer, who is Rotnem’s life partner, plays Harrison Ross, a spiritual individual that’s all about yoga and self-help, but is struggling with self-love underneath the surface. He says he was excited by the idea of Hidden Canyons.

“Brant and I work very well together creatively,” he states. “We collaborated on a film that I made right before this series. He acted in it, and he helped me as I was working away at writing and producing. So, when he got inspired to do Hidden Canyons, I thought, that is so outside the box and innovative. What can I do? Of course, I wanted to bring on whatever resources I just had from my previous project, so it was like a building block. Brant also wanted to raise the bar when it comes to shining a light on things that aren’t even being talked about as much as they should be. What he was coming up with was very inspiring, and I was lucky enough to be there from the beginning.”

Tann plays Cheynne Stone, a trans high schooler who is coming up against controversy by competing on the girl’s swim team.

“I am so happy that I auditioned for this role,” she exclaims. “I just love how Brant created this series. Seeing him on set, he wears so many hats, and it’s so inspiring. This is stuff that I want to do, and I hope I am able to do something like this in the future. My goal as a creative and an actor is to highlight stories about my community. I also love that with Cheyenne’s character, audiences get to see a different type of trans and queer experience.”

Hidden Canyons’ highly anticipated second season premiered on January 28 and consists of 44 episodes, which will drop every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Season one unfolds over the course of a single evening, while the second season takes place throughout the following morning.

Initially, Rotnem was not sure if people would be willing to watch a one-minute series on social media and says Season One was an experiment.

“It was sort of an introduction to the format,” he says. “Can we make this work, and will people engage with a minute long format? We knew the audience we were going for, and we know that the gays love flashy content that is wild and dramatic, but we’d always intended to go a little bit deeper with the themes.”

Rotnem says the format allowed a sort of introduction for the series, which could then use the format to explore the “more pressing” issues the LGBTQ community faces, like mental health, poly relationships, modern parenting and surrogacy, and the trans experience.

“One thing that was lovely about launching on TikTok is that TikTok is not about the sexiness and drama; TikTok wanted to delve into what some of the issues were and what the characters were talking about,” Rotnem says. “It was nice to have that permission from our audience in season one, and to have that desire expressed from them for us to go deeper into some of these themes.”

In addition to a successful collaborative process between the show’s cast and crew, there has been great open dialogue with viewers.

“People have gotten very engaged in the comments, which is amazing,” Rotnem says. “If you do more of a mainstream TV series or film, you might get some reviews or comments on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, but we were getting thousands of comments on every single episode, which was just more feedback on every minute of content than most creators get. We really took a step back and listened to what some of that was. Some people were saying they loved everything about the series, while others were pointing out things that were missing.”

“And these weren’t just written comments,” Tann adds. “People on TikTok are creating video responses. You can stitch something and play a portion of it, so the engagement is on a different type of level.”

Currently, there is no official word if Hidden Canyons will continue with a third season, but Rotnem hints that there is always a possibility.

Follow Hidden Canyons on Instagram and TikTok @hiddencanyonsseries or visit hiddencanyonsseries.com. Stay up-to-date and connect with Rotnem, Glazer, and Tann on Instagram.

Photos courtesy of Hidden Canyons