My YouTube Experience

Susan Ee

Susan Ee

Member
Hey guys,

Thought it'd be fun to post my YouTube experience and hopefully hear about others' experiences. I finished a 2-minute thriller (yes, a 2-minute thriller :-), Psychopath ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ3rg2ZnXzY ). For various reasons, the primary one being that I'd rather spend my pennies on my next film rather than on festival entry fees, I posted it up on YouTube. I expected a few of my friends would see it and give me a hard time about how weird I am...

It got over 500 views in 5 days. I also got contacted by a film festival director who saw it on YouTube and loved it. He invited me into the festival with the application fees waived and automatic acceptance! Whoa. So now, it'll be shown on the big screen on Oct. 1 along with other festival films.

This is my first YouTube film and I'm so sold on it. Curious to hear about other people's experiences -- good, bad, indifferent? It'd be nice to see how well it works overall.
 
Nice story, good twist. Very well shot. Hit and miss on the acting, except the girl, who was very good indeed.

One serious criticism. You don't show the mouse/rat being skewered. It may seem like an absurdly minor point, but it is not, so let me explain.

You may say: "it's enough to imply, it's enough to show the aftermath." No, it is not. First, that may have been true 50 years ago, but not for today's audiences. Second, and far more importantly, you actually remove a lot from the story, when you don't show the actual killing. You lose drama. It is far more visceral in this case to see the actual killing - it actually makes the point - because after all, everything else is implied in the story, and it becomes too much implication, and not enough showing. We need to see one instance of something twisted from the girl, not yet another implication. Often times implication is better than the actual showing, but not in this case. In this case it seems like a wimpy cop-out. Finally, you may say: it was too hard to do a realistic special effect (obviously, I'm not saying to in fact kill the mouse!), and we didn't have the budget, expertise etc. - and you know what... that counts against you. Because what we admire is a job done DESPITE the low budget - not a job NOT done because you didn't have the budget. We admire someone who managed to get great effects on no budget ("Evil Dead", which launched a career, arguably based on that) - and we want to see how inventive you are with no money... you lose points big time, when you drop needed effect, because you are not inventive enough to pull it off on low/no budget (and by the way, only idiots come on this board with the preface "watch this - it's sh|t, but you know, we didn't have the budget"... of course with a budget any moron can pay experts to do a good job... the whole point is to do it on NO budget - if it's sh|t, don't show it, and don't use the "no budget" excuse, it only makes you look stupid).

Again, seems a minor point, but it actually is quite significant.

That said, the rest is quite good! Good luck, and hope you keep making films, you seem to have quite a bit of talent.
 
Thanks for the thoughtful review!

This issue of showing the kill came up before, during and after the shoot. People seem split on it -- some feel strongly on showing the kill and some feel strongly on not showing it. I did get a shot that was very close to showing the kill (the knife stabs down very close to the mouse) because I got lucky and the mouse froze for a moment during the shot. Oddly, the mouse didn't look real! So I didn't use it.

Maybe I'll post up the real-mouse-looking-fake scene so you guys can see it if you're curious. Those of you interested in the special challenges of working with a mouse/rat -- I blogged about it ("First Film Challenge: Rats"- see my blog link below).

So glad you liked it!
 
I have had a nice response on Youtube. It has had more of a personal effect on me though. Seeing the responses has kept me going and now my movie, Stricken, is up for best horror film of the year at the Action on Film Festival. Also, i have enjoyed having so many people watch my film, and I love to respond to the people who have been searching for answers in moviemaking. I love to help them grow as I did. I have a super long way to go, but I think YouTube has been a step in the right direction.
Here is Stricken.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aap-11vrYaM
 
Creepy! Congrats! Can you share with us what kind of marketing you did to get over 300,000 views? Talk about amazing encouragement. Just for fun, I've set my goal for 1,000 views in 10 days. I'll be totally stoked if I get that. I'm on track so far at 673 in 6 1/2 days. 3 1/2 more days to go!
 
Tried to watch your movie, but it just wanted to load and load forever without playing, even if I reloaded the page. This sometimes happens with clips on YouTube for me; I haven't figured out why.

We've had some pretty positive experiences with YouTube, including getting some phone calls and a meeting with an agent. The crucial factor there was that one of our pieces was chosen by a YouTube guest editor to go on the front page, and got over 200,000 views in a couple days. Of course there was also a lot of spillover into our other videos as well as a result. We've had a fair number of things featured in individual channels, as well, which seems to yield 10-15,000 views per week.

Anyway, as with everything else, the key seems to be networking. A lot of the YouTube editors know who we are now and know that what we produce will usually be interesting if nothing else. You can check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=psychicbunny
 
i'm very sensitive when it comes to showing "mentally-wounded" individuals in the way the cliche is projected by society on everyone who doesn't really know these kind of people. Because the fact that she hurt herselft after killing that mouse shows that this is totally unreal. It could be one of the best 2 minutes i've ever watched if you labeled it as a tragical-comedy or something. Because the end was in fact funny. And set a perfect point to the scene before.
But i assure you, there are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those ones who hurt others and those who hurt themselves. And if someone comes to an extreme in using pain as a relief he/she ONLY HURTS/OTHERS or ONLY HURTS/KILLS HER/HIMSELF.
Apart from some exceptions of course. Like kamikaze terrorists for example.

But you as an director have to take the responibility for your own work and you have to consider the possibility that many people who will watch your "thriller" probably will just get more intensified into the belief that people with certain problems are completely focused on destruction.
 
Wow, those are mind-boggling numbers. Is there a submission process to editors? It seems there are too many for them to look at everything that gets uploaded...

Thanks for sharing your video. Makes me want to take a train trip. :-)
 
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That's funny. Like I said, some people would like more graphic violence in the film while others think there's too much. Your mileage may vary.
 
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Also my first time on you tube, I would not have attempted it without the advice on this forum. Mine is a music video. 1100+ hits in first week. I would love to know how to market a clip as it seems to get attention to the makers and artists. My rapper has already been contacted for pro gigs in under a week! So the exposure works. I am dying to shoot another!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fi3FLcCPLQ

Brian
 
Wow, that's awesome. You guys don't need any marketing tips -- ha! I'm just starting to learn the basics of film marketing. I did a day by day run-down on the first 7 days which got about 100 hits/day. I just posted it on my blog -- what I did each day and what the numbers were at the end of that day. If anyone's interested, it's here: http://feraldream.vox.com/

Yes, I know it would be way more interesting if one of these guys who got 30k in 30 days would give us his marketing secrets... maybe they will. :-)

Taormina -- your picture is interesting. I've seen that 3-legged symbol on ancient Greek coins. Weirdly interesting.
 
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