Cool blabs: Interview with Director of YouTube's Best Short Film of 2007

I got to know about Shelton films whilst going through the winners of this year's YouTube awards. Shelton Films won the 'Short Film Category' and my curiousity led me to briefly interview Ben from Sheltonfilms.com, the producers of the award winning short (online) film 'My Name is Lisa'. The film placed third in 'YouTube project: Direct' and aims to raise awareness about Alzheimer Disease.

Picture: Ben Shelton

Interview follows below:
It actually started with a flair for film making but the web took it to another level?

Yes. When I was 13 years old, I started making short movies and I knew immediately it was what I wanted to do. It may be seen as an unrealistic "dream" to become a filmmaker for some, but my uncle was a filmmaker, so I knew it was a possibility. My uncle Ron wrote and directed Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump and Tin Cup.

Now, if I wanted to be a professional basketball player, that would be somewhat unrealistic, but that's because none of my relatives are in the NBA... Except for my dad's cousin's husband's nephew, but I've never met him.

When I was a kid making movies, the internet didn't exist yet, so I had no idea HOW I was going to get my movies shown, but I knew that it was what I wanted to do. After college I started submitting short films into film festivals, but I got no response. Once YouTube came around, the internet became a place to share my movies to millions of people without having to go through all the film festivals or mailing out DVD's. It's all one click away now. It's great!

What is the most important...a well-produced & well scripted movie or a strong presence in a successful online network?

The most important thing to me is to create something I'm proud of. I want to tell stories, make films, and share my art with an audience, and the internet has allowed me to do that. If your question is: "How do I get my work shown by millions?" The answer is to create great work. Now, there are always cheap tricks and gimmicks to create an online community. I'm sure if you make "shock" videos or "nude" videos, you will get more views, but there's no integrity in that, and I'm not a fan. At the end of the day, great work will get noticed, but you have to work hard and get it out there.

What about the MySpace Deal and the Paul Brogan character?

What about it? We made the first Paul Brogan video after about 100 takes. We wrote it, re-wrote it, and all the focus was on making it great. After we finally enjoyed it, we posted it on YouTube and it just started to grow in popularity. Next thing you know, we're in the MySpace offices signing a deal. Since then, we've made 5 more videos that have been featured on MySpace.com and one of them was shown on the Super Bowl pre-game show. But it all started with us being perfectionists and making sure the first video was as funny as it could be.

"My Name is Lisa" is one of your latest successful productions which again has made it big on established online networks. Was this production specifically made for the online audience?

I made the film for YouTube Project: Direct, so I knew it was going to be seen on-line first. It was in my consciousness, and so I added the video-log to the story because I knew that that was what people are used to looking at. That's the only thing that was related to watching it on-line. And I probably would have had the video blog anyway, because that's just the world we live in today.

How does an online video become so popular? Is it just posting it on the net?

It's never just one thing. It's always a combination of a compelling story, great acting, good writing and just the right amount of luck.

Watch the film:


Get to know more about SheltonFilms

Get to know more about 'My Name is Lisa'

Marie Digby: just open the marketing Umbrella..ela..ela:

Those of us who have not come across any YouTube video of Marié-Digby until today have got to learn that Marié-Digby is a real You-tube success story, not only from an artistic point of view but also from a marketing perspective. Just take a look at the two screen shots below:



The first one features results of my search for Mandy Moore's cover of Umbrella, the summer hit song from R&B artist Rihanna, the second snapshot, features my second search, Marié-Digby's cover of Umbrella. One can easily see that Marié's most popular video has had 1,959,742 views in just 4 months whilst that of celebrity Mandy Moore got 462,526. In total Marié's videos are said to have exceeded 2.3 million views.

Now this is not a fair comparison since other respective versions of these videos should also be included in total views and Mandy's video was only added 2 months ago. Yet this is definately an indication that sometimes standing out is not the only way to promote a new product, service, brand or even artist. The comparison also hints that big brands (such as the "Mandy-Moore" brand) often fail to be as personal and as intimate as other brands are.

Marié's Umbrella did not stop at You-Tube since MTV included this cover in its popular reality show "The Hills" and Los-Angeles Star98.7 radio also included the song in the music playlist. Sometime after all this was happening The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article in which it disclosed a record-deal Marié had signed with Hollywood Records much before her videos were posted on YouTube. WSJ accused Marié of feigning an amateur status whilst not revealing her MySpace and YouTube pages her major record deal from the beginning.

From a marketing perspective though all this presents a wealth of insight:

Primarily this was a case of being in the crowd and not be any different from the rest. Marié's case, even if a strategic campaign planned out by Hollywood record as disclosed by WSJ questions the continuous need to be as distinct and original as some creative agencies attempt to be.

Secondly, all this has to be seen in the YouTube context. YouTube allows viewers to control the media channel and the audience like that. Marié is one of us, she does not want to sell anything to us! Marié-Digby as a product provided this same opportunity to the YouTube audience. Viewers could promote someone who shared their dreams and ambitions such as 'becoming famous whilst fulfilling your dream' or 'doing what you really love doing'. It's as if viewers felt the obligation to help out and share Marié's talent.

Thirdly, Marié chose to go viral. Being recommended by MTV is cool but having 2.3 million views on YouTube definately says something about the power of recommendation and how much we trust it more than any rightly branded product or service.

So...well done Marié!