YouTube
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Five Questions for Casey Neistat about His SXSW-Premiering David Dobrik Documentary, Under the Influence
When Casey Neistat, along with his brother Van, made Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2006, he had already made over 300 shorts that had played at film festivals, museums and online. Three years later he launched an HBO series. But Google Neistat now and the information panel for the 40-year filmmaker offers a single blunt ID: “American YouTuber.” It was only in 2010 that Neistat began posting his work on YouTube and in 2015 that these postings became daily, a profusion of content (and subscribers — 12 million) that have made him a progenitor of a newer generation of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 12, 2022 -
“‘I Have My Real-life Self and My Online-Self, Just Like Everybody Else'”: Liza Mandelup on Teenage Social Media Stars and Her Hulu-Premiering Doc, Jawline
“I’m telling you guys,” says 16-year-old Austyn Tester, sitting in a leather computer chair and speaking into his Macbook’s webcam. The otherwise bleak, wood-panelled room he sits in is completely taken over by soft lighting equipment; the camera pans from his perfectly coiffed hair down to his dirty socks and stained carpet. “If you’ve got a dream, you’ve got to chase it. Don’t let anyone’s opinions affect you.” In director Liza Mandelup’s feature doc debut, Jawline, Austyn speaks to himself as much as he does to the gaggle of teen girls that are watching him live-stream his motivational speech. He […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 23, 2019 -
Why I Spent Months Making An Archival Documentary about The Slenderman
When I was thirteen years old I spent a good deal of my free time posting on an online message board dedicated to Wes Craven’s Scream film series. I was a nerdy, creative kid stuck in suburbia, and I’d stay up late on my parents’ basement desktop computer writing long, elaborate, I’m-sure-illegible fan fiction stories to post on the message board. This was a subculture on the forum: users would regularly post their own fictional horror stories (some inspired by the Scream movies, some original). The stories would often feature the characters from Scream mixed with new characters inspired by […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jun 19, 2018 -
“All of a Sudden I Found Myself Creating Content on YouTube”: The Making of A Trip to Unicorn Island
Filmmaker and songwriter Scott David Winn was a working DP who turned himself into a YouTube star (ScottDW) before turning himself back into a filmmaker. In this interview he talks about making the documentary feature A Trip to Unicorn Island, which is about another YouTube star, Lilly Singh (known on YouTube as IISuperwomanII), going on her first tour. Filmmaker: How did you go from YouTube shorts to making a documentary film? Winn: Three years ago I was working as a director of photography, shooting commercials [and] music videos and I accidentally stumbled upon YouTube. I had a passion for coming […]
by Michael Murie on Apr 12, 2016 -
Khalik Allah and Kevin B. Lee on Online Platforms vs. Festival Programming
Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake and Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas are radically different films. Lee assembles footage of the making of Transformers: Age of Extinction and related materials to delve into how Michael Bay’s hyper-blockbuster took over cities all over the globe and made deals with their governments to save money; Allah’s film is an hour-long piece of street portraiture from 125th and Park in Harlem, giving voice to the routinely marginalized. What they have in common is that they both initially launched online before receiving festival play. Lee’s film is still online, while Allah has pulled his movie […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 12, 2015 -
The Reel Distribution Politik of The Interview
The year’s most fascinating entertainment story gets even more so today, as the Seth Rogen/James Franco North Korea-baiting The Interview becomes available for online rental and purchase via YouTube, Google Play and Sony’s own site, with a limited theatrical release occurring tomorrow. (As I post this, Sony’s site just reveals the film’s poster art.) Only days after issuing a statement saying the studio “had no plans” to release the film, it has suddenly become the poster child for the day-and-date exhibition of a studio release — a distribution strategy the theater chains have been balking at for years. From Todd […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 24, 2014 -
YouTube, We’re Watching You
As I pull up to the front of the convention center, a man in a fluorescent vest struggles with some orange cones. I roll down my window to see if there is room in the parking garage, but before I can ask he says. “We’re full. Twenty thousand people, too many cars. Welcome to VidCon.” As I try to talk, the long line of vehicles behind me begin to honk. Drowned out, I drive off. It was only five years ago that more than 1,400 YouTube creators and fans crammed into a hotel in Century City, Los Angeles. The first […]
by Lance Weiler on Jul 17, 2014 -
Five Questions for Recommended by Enrique‘s Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Director Rania Attieh was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, and her partner Daniel Garcia grew up in South Texas. Their first feature together, Okay, Enough, Goodbye crisscrossed Attieh’s hometown, canvassing 30 locations in 40 days to create a story, they say, that is a “love/hate relationship with the city itself.” So, after that feature won plaudits on the festival circuit — and landed the two on Filmmaker‘s 2011 25 New Faces list — it seems only appropriate that they head to Texas for their follow-up. Premiering tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Recommended by Enrique is described as “a tale […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2014 -
The Future of Compression: Google Attempts to Replace H.26X… Again
For a second time, Google is attempting to pitch a compression format as the replacement for an H.26X compressor. They tried to do it three years ago for HD video when they pitched VP8 as a replacement for H.264 and had little success. Now they’re back with a new angle: VP9 is the format for 4K, and they are putting it up against H.265, the new 4K compressor that is also referred to as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). Should you care? Compression codecs can be fascinating, frustrating and their naming confusing. For example, everyone’s heard of H.264 and AVCHD, […]
by Michael Murie on Feb 26, 2014 -
ScreenCraft’s Digital Discourse: Build Your Audience Now
“Distributing is easy, marketing is hard.” With that statement, moderator Ryan Koo kicked off the discussion at ScreenCraft’s recent Digital Discourse panel on the future of content creation and releasing. Nestled in the WGAE suite of a Tribeca high rise, the participating panelists included YouTube’s Amy Singer; Erica Anderson, Chief Marketing Director at Seed&Spark; Erick Opeka, SVP of Digital Distribution at Cinedigm; @radical.media’s Adam Neuhaus; and BOND 360 Founder and CEO, Marc Schiller. Chances are, you’ve heard it before: with so much of the independent film world unspooling in a viral sphere at a hair-raising pace, filmmakers must be prepared […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 8, 2013
