New Hollywood Happening Now 2

In the last article, we took a look at the small independent producers doing big things in online distribution by writing, directing, shooting, and staring in their own productions. They have complete creative control, much like the creative freedom sought by D.W. Griffiths when he headed west to L.A.

I don’t know if you noticed with the previous article, but fully ALL of the featured producers at one point relocated to L.A. Coincidence? You might think so, but for one thread that brings them all together.  That thread is Facerocker (once called Overcrank Media), more commonly known as Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch, two alumni of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Facerocker

Freddie Wong met Brandon Laatsch in college where they found they shared a common interest in visual effects and action movies. In a strange coincidence they revealed on the show Jimmy Kimmel Live that Freddie had actually used some explosion footage uploaded by Brandon for one of his projects and it was not until later they realized it.

One gets the impression from Freddie’s videos that he spent a good deal of time in college playing Rock Band along with other video games and making rock music. For a time, he competed professionally in video games, and some of his videos reveal his talent in this area.

Freddie and Brandon created their Youtube channel in 2005, describe then, and still, as “just some cool dudes making sweek vids with rad FX”. In February 2006 they uploaded their first video, “Aces”.

The acting is suspect, and the post-production is pretty minimal. But the sound is decent, and it is indeed some good ‘ole action as promised.

In the time since, the guys have grown in popularity for the originality and fun of their videos. The production values have increased as they followed a strict regimen of uploading weekly videos. By now they will often get over 2 million views within a week of uploading.

All of that would be quite impressive, but not freaky until you begin to notice a few threads coming together.

Looking carefully at the credits of Corridor Digital’s breakout video “Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing”, who do we find listed for sound design? Freddie Wong. Special Effects? Brandon Laatsch. In fact it turns out that Sam and Nico are neighbours of Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch. Sam revealed in an interview with their old friends at the FXHome forum, “a large part of the viral success is due to our friend and housemate Freddie W, whose channel we’ve hosted it on”. How the guys go from Northern Michigan University to Madison Wisconson, to Southern California and wind up living with Freddie I can only imagine. IMDB lists Sam Gorski’s credits for “Zero Trooper F” in 2008 and “Dionysius Thrax” in 2009. In 2010 the movie “Deadline” is listed and one of the production companies, Enso Entertainment, has an office in L.A. Another, Films in Motion, is listed in Baton Rouge, also in L.A.

One starts to get the picture of a couple of young guys trying to get a break and going to L.A. to work on their first low-budget special effects films. They are still passionate about making their own films, and somehow they wind up in the same place as Freddie and Brandon. It’s conceivable.

But it gets more interesting. Freddie and the WongFu guys know each other as well. On June 20 in 2010 they met up and put the video up on the WongFu blog. In the post, Phil says “recently him and Brandon have gotten pretty serious with their projects…they’ve also been working with a lot of other youtubers like MysteryGuitarMan and JoeNationTV…if WongFu ever starts to do action films, you know who we’d be calling to work with”.

Think it ends there? It doesn’t! And now I’m starting to feel like Mulder from the X-Files as I find these connections.

Recently something happened that blew my mind. If you’ve been keeping up with these articles you know that traditional media has a very set way of doing things. You get your idea together, you try to get in front of a distributor to get a deal. You get your advance to make a pilot or feature. You develop it, produce it, and turn it over for distribution.

For the making of their first full-length feature, Freddie, Brandon, and possibly Facerocker co-founder Matthew Arnold completely by-passed the traditional funding model, to retain full rights and all royalties, while keeping complete creative direction! How did they do it? They same way they’ve done everything – respecting the fans and using social media. They started a Kickstarter project.

On September 21, 2011 Freddie, Brandon, and Matt posted a video to the Youtube channel looking for shooting locations to make videos in. At the same time Freddie announced the plans for a feature-length video and posted a link to the Kickstarter page.

In less than a month, the team had raised over a quarter of a million dollars. They had intended to raise less than 100K.

Now a quarter of a million (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) is considered very low budget.  For instance, even here in Canada a low-budget feature is generally considered in the range of $750K according to Telefilm. Traditional producers might sneeze at it. But that is because they don’t think like an interactive producer, for whom such an amount of money is outstanding. Considering that most videos from the teams mention have no budget, or a few hundred dollars, my brain melts to think what the guys will do with a quarter mill!

And in fact, I don’t have to wonder about it, because as always they’re sharing their information out to all their fans! In their Kickstarter promotional video, they revealed who they are looking to for this first awesome production – other Youtubers. Sheer genius! Who better to understand the audience the guys are going for? In the initial video, they name their project as “Video Game High School” and are seen with writers Brian Firenzi of “5 Second Films”, another popular Youtube channel, and Will Campus, who claims his qualifications include ‘holding a cute dog’. Which interestingly enough, is a pretty good qualification on Youtube.

The feature is now in production, and amazingly enough the guys have managed to stand by their credo of putting up video every single week. In the midst of shooting, they have posted their usual fun videos, and also a sneak peak of behind-the-scenes on the feature. In it, even more Youtube celebrities are revealed, including…wait for it….Justine Elizak and the guys of Wong Fu productions. They met in June, they’re shooting together by October. Things happen fast in New Hollywood.

I’m incredibly stoked to see this kind of thing happening right before me on Youtube and social media. I consider this the genesis of an entirely new way of making entertainment, and we’re incredibly fortunate to be living during this special time when it is forming.

If you think I’m being overly dramatic in using the term “New Hollywood”, there is one more interesting fact to note. Hollywood as we know it began when D.W. Griffiths traveled west from New York to shoot a short film in L.A. and discovered the recently annexed town. Who is listed in the founding fathers of the USC School of Cinematic Arts that Freddie and Brandon attended and met at?

Ya, you guessed it – D.W. Griffiths himself.

In the next article, let’s tie it all together by travelling away from sunny California and back to frozen Canada for a few thoughts on what New Hollywood means for us.