El Madrid de 2070 es el escenario del cortometraje Cíclope, una cinta rodada con fondos 3D en alta definición con una única ayuda oficial, la de la Comunidad de Madrid, que llegará a los cines el 25 de septiembre. La compañía Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Spain -Wdsmps- estrenará el corto en 90 salas de cine junto con el largometraje Los substitutos.

El pasado 23 de septiembre, Imagen Line colaboró con la Comunidad de Madrid en la presentación del cortometraje. Para ello, utilizó el sistema Reflecmedia. En pocos minutos convertimos el auditorio en un plató croma. Los ponentes presentaron el evento desde los escenarios futuristas del cortometraje. Este sistema, es sin duda, una optima solución cuando las condiciones de luz en un rodaje no son las idóneas, y también para presentaciones corporativas o institucionales con un toque de originalidad. .

De Producciones Imagen Line

De Producciones Imagen Line

http://www.viejascostumbres.com

40 GREATEST INTERNET SUPERSTARS by Web Junk

1. Gary Brolsma – Numa Numa kid
Gary Brolsma rose to fame in 2002 when the then 18 year old posted a video of himself lip-synching to a Romanian song “Numa Numa”. In September 2006, he released a new version. Has been viewed over 13 million times (according to Wikipedia) and has spawned many parodies.

2. Ghyslain Raza – Star Wars Kid
The 2003 clip shows Quebec teen Ghyslain Raza performing Jedi light saber moves with a golf ball retriever. Shot in his high school, when his classmates found the tape they posted it on the internet. Raza sued the kids who swiped his tape, asking for 350-thousand dollars. The case was recently settled for an undisclosed amount.

3. Denny Blaze – The Average Homeboy
90’s rap audition tapes from “average homeboy” Blazin Hazen. He returns presently teaming up with internet star Leslie “Gem Star” Hall in the video Cadillac Beats.

4. Jessica Rose – Lonelygirl15
An elaborate internet faux masterminded by three San Francisco friends. Lonelygirl15 posted video blogs from her bedroom of her strictly religious parents. Searching for love lonleygirl aka Bree, was portrayed by actress Jessica Rose.

5. Tila Tequila
A breakout my space unsigned music star Tila’s page has netted 31.5 million hits, has her own clothing line, a cell phone endorsement, and she has appeared on the April cover of Stuff Magazine as well as Maxim.

6. Perez Hilton – Gossip blogger
Working as writer for gay magazines Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. quit his job and since September 2005 has been working under the surname Perez Hilton. Sued twice, his blog site tripled hits when he was the first to post pictures of Angelina, Brad and Maddox in Kenya, and also the first to post Collin Farrell’s sex tape. Hits jumped in one month from 70,000 hits per day to 700,000 making Perez a celebrity in his own right.

7. Chinese Backstreet Boys
Huang Yixen and Wei Wei’s are two of China’s biggest internet exports. Donning NBA jerseys, head gear and sitting in a dorm room they lip synch to the Backstreet Boy jam “I want it that way”. The Back Dorm Boys maintain a Chinese-language blog through Sina.com. There is also an English-language “Dormitory Boys” blog on Blogger.com, but some readers suspect this is a hoax written by someone other than Wei Wei and Huang Yi Xin.

8. OK Go
The video features boy band dance choreography on treadmills. Choreographed by front man Damian Kulash’s sister Trish the band practiced 16-20 times before they landed the single take that became one of the most watched clips in you tube history. The video made for only $4.99 (the cost of the videotape), the video became one of the most downloaded videos in you tube history.

9. Tom Anderson – Myspace Tom
Though Myspace Tom is the “face” of Myspace, he is very elusive. We never see interviews with him, though we have seen interviews with his colleagues. There have been parodies made of him by Myspace members, pretending to be him — holding interviews, making comments, etc.

10. Ask a Ninja
Video blogs of two comedians dressed as Ninja’s answering questions about Ninja’s. Recent blogs are about how to get a hit done, and does the globalization of the world help or hurt the Ninja’s. Big hit on you tube and they launched their own site askaninja.com

11. Mike Caracciolo – Kid from Brooklyn
Michael Caracciolo likes to express his views in a big way. Posting video blogs on his site thekidfrombrooklyn.com. Mike vents his views on a variety of subjects from gas prices, the war in Iraq and even Starbucks. Coincidentally, Mike lives in New Jersey not Brooklyn.

12. Fritz Globe & Stephen Voltz – Diet Coke and Mentos guys
Two scientist type characters see what happens when you combine mentos (the “Fresh Maker”) with Diet Coke. They keep upping the anty and adding more 2 liters of Diet Coke and more mentos as the experiment goes on.

13. Kyle MacDonald – One Red Paperclip
The website one red paperclip was created by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger who bartered his way from a single paperclip to a house in a series of trades spanning almost exactly one year.

14. Noah Kalina
Noah took a picture of himself everyday for 6 years. The film ‘everyday’ will be shown on IFC (Independent Film Channel) during the month of November.

15. Jay Maynard – Tron Guy
Jay Maynard a single computer consultant from Minnesota started dressing up as the lead character from his favorite movie a few years ago before going to a science fiction convention. Since then he has gained a ton of popularity and even appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live several times.

16. Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell – Lazy Sunday
The film was viewed more than five million times at YouTube before NBC Universal asked the site to remove it, along with several other copyrighted NBC video clips in February 2006.

17. Lee Paige – Cop shoots self
DEA Agent Lee Page is lecturing to students in Florida on gun safety when he accidentally shoots himself in the foot with a handgun. Agent is attempting to sue US Government for releasing video.

18. Gino the Ginny
Started as a stunt to get then 10 year old Bronx native Gino famous. He had his cousin and NYU student videotape him during the blizzard of 2005. Mimicking the Italian American Guido’s and Ginny’s of the NY/NJ club scene the video clip which hit the internet a day after it was filmed was an instant hit. With 850,000 + hits on you tube so far Gino has become a celebrity in his own right with a record deal, speaking engagements an planned DVD of his stick, and 30,000+ my space friends

19. Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog
Skateboarding bulldog Tyson zips around on his custom made skateboard. 4 year old Tyson started skating at 1 after his owner put him on and he took to it. Now he’s a canine celebrity with film and TV credits, and even his own Myspace page.

20. Leslie Hall – Gem Sweater
Art school graduate and internet celebrity Leslie Hall loves Gem Sweaters and has a collection to boot, over 400! In the first of her and her bands “Leslie and the Les” videos she sings about her love for them. She’s also done promos for MTV U, and launched her own website. Gem Sweaters.com

21. Little Superstar
Excerpt from the 1990 film Adhisaya Piravi starring Rajnikanth known as superstar. The clip which has found fame via the internet and was re-dubbed “little superstar”

22. Alabama Leprechaun
In 2006, a news station in Mobile Alabama did a story about people seeing a leprechaun in a tree (he only comes out at night). After the story ran, it was posted on youtube and received 2,497,000 hits and then a rap video/song was made from the footage (“Where Da Gold At”) as well as a website where you can buy t-shirts and learn more…..

23. Matt Harding – Where The Hell is Matt?
Videogame writer/designer Matt quit his job in 2003 to travel the world with his savings. He kept a website to keep his family and friends up to date on where he was. Along the journey his friend suggested he dance at each location he went to. After the trip he decided to make the video.

24. Jack Rebney – RV Man
Jack Rebney, a.k.a Winnebago Man, has numerous outtakes and tirades pieced together by the video crew Mr. Rebney hired to assist in making a promotional video for marketing RVs. There are several versions of this file on YouTube featuring Winnebago Man’s hatred for flies and several long swearing and cursing montages.

25. Mister Pregnant
Madman from New York City whose videos are offensive yet somehow hilarious.

26. geriactric1927
WWII vet with hugely popular YouTube videos — 2nd most subscribed uploader.

27. Brian Atene – Stanley Kubrick audition
In 1984 wannabe thespian Brian Atene took bizarre accents and even stranger behavior to new levels in his video audition for Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

28. Stevie Ryan – Little Loca
Stevie Ryan is an out-of-work actress living in Los Angeles whose videos are consistently among the most viewed and discussed on YouTube (over a million viewers). She appears as different characters, such as the thickly accented Latina from East Los Angeles known as “Lil’ Loca.”

29. Chuck Norris
One of the most emailed lists ever, the “Chuck Norris Fact List” was original posted on website IRC. Partially inspired by Walker Texas Ranger jokes on Late Night with Conan O’Brien the the “facts” tend to involve absurdly exaggerated claims of Norris’ toughness, attitude, virility, and masculinity. Chuck appeared on the best damn sports show period on Fox Sports and read the list.

30. Karyn Bosnak – Internet Beggar
The website that put internet begging on the map is savekaryn.com, a website started by a young tv producer who had gotten herself into 20,000 of credit card debt. Her website asked for donations to help her get out of debt and she eventually reached that goal. Her website attracted a lot of media attention in 2002; it was profiled on CNN and The Today Show. It also spawned the parody website dontsavekaryn.com.

31. Spongemonkeys
Joel Veitch MA is an animator, commercials director and singer / songwriter. He is the creator of the cult website rathergood.com which he began in 2000. Since then its unique menagerie of animals and songs – particularly his singing kittens and moon-obsessed Spongmonkeys – have developed a worldwide cult following. Joel is a co-founder of Tomboy Virals. He is also lead singer of the band 7 Seconds Of Love.

32. Ryan Holt – Balloon prank victim
USC Vice President gets pranked when guys from the student senate fill Ryan’s room full of balloons and he starts yelling about the cost of the balloons and air. Look at him being serious!

33. Mahir Cagri
Turkish Mahir is looking for an American Woman, and what better place to look than the internet. Since starting his website where he looks for love he has landed on the Forbes 100 top celebrity list, been spoofed on SNL and put out a music video. Still single and trying to cash in on his popularity Mahir has been filming commercials in Europe and has several other projects in the works including a documentary on his life.

34. Chad Vader
Star Wars spoof featuring food co-op day shift manager “Chad Vader” Chad deals with his co-workers, does battle with his nemesis the night shift manager and tries to find love in this four part internet series.

35. Jenni Ringley – JenniCAM
From 1996 to 2003 viewers around the world could tune in 24/7 to see updated pictures of Jenni Ringley cleaning the kitchen, to taking a nap for 15.99 a year. Jenni closed down the site in 2003 due to pay pal’s pornography rules.

36. Andy Milonakis
Fame began as on-line phenomenon. Web clips like “The Superbowl is Gay” led to appearances on Jimmy Kimmel show.

37. Rags the boxing kangaroo
Kangaroo attacks Marty the Monster, mascot from Australian TV show.

38. Cindy Margolis – World’s Most Downloaded Woman
A pioneer in internet searches Cindy Margolis is by far and away the most searched person in the history of the internet. At her peak at age 34 in 1999 it was estimated persons were searching her name on average at a rate of 70,000 times per 24 hours. In 2000 the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged her as the “most downloaded” person in 1999.

39. Ethan Chandler – Bank of America singer
Bank of America execs sing hilarious version of “One” with new lyrics about recent merger. Parodied by David Cross. U2’s publisher threatened to sue.

40. Joanna Repsold – Ate a praying mantis
On a dare to get two guys to go to church Joanna eats a live praying mantis.

3° In-Edit :: 2005: 

Algunas cosas son patrimonio del mundo. Generalmente, las mejores cosas lo son, y el hip hop es una de ellas. Porque, aunque nacido en el Bronx y armado de Pumas de colores, cinturones metalizados, breaks de funk y bailes crujenucas, el hip hop ya es de todas las partes, todos los países. Su lenguaje, las formas físicas (bailadores rotos-graffiti-pinchadisquismo-rimadores) que aquel adoptó para expresar una conciencia de clase, un estado de las cosas de la juventud negro-hispana en el entorno urbano de los Estados Unidos, es un lenguaje tan empático, tan adoptable, tan universal, que –aunque no podría haber nacido en ninguna otra parte- puede reproducirse por todo el globo. Puede reproducirse, en Sevilla, por ejemplo. Y cuando lo hace, lo hizo, fue de una manera tan natural que –como dice el lugar común- parecía que fuera vivido allí toda la vida. Esa situación, la de un rap y hip hop autóctono, andaluz, que es honesto y local y no trata de copiar dogmas ajenos, es la que se desmigaja en este magnífico documental de Juan José Ponce. En él, los raperos Tote King, el grupo SFDK- formado por Zatu Rey y Acción Sánchez -, Juaninacka y Dogma Crew (El Puto Largo, Hijo Pródigo, Legendario y Demonio), además de algunos graffiteros como Logan o SLK, cantan y pintan, se mueven ante la cámara, nos enseñan como se vive el hip hop en Sevilla City. ¿Y cómo se vive? En palabras de Tote King, “Rap es lo que hago, hip hop es lo que vivo, con el sol estudio y por la noche escribo, sé testigo del plan que persigo sin preludios, adjetivos calificativos para mi objetivo, vida sin interludios. ¿Ombligo del mundo? Soy algo más peculiar que el ego profundo de un rapper con fobia social; duermo en literas, mi cuarto es un zulo, formulo historias, libera tu mente como un móvil oscuro, con euforia”. Es un fragmento de su canción “Música para enfermos”, y refleja la actitud de todos estos pequeños guerreros del hip hop hacia su cultura, lo más importante para ellos, lo que les hace ir “p’alante”. Juan José Ponce no se detiene en pormenores matemáticos ni biografías extendidas; la suya es la visión fragmentada, vivida, que nace de la garganta del rapper sevillano, sin florituras ni zarandajas. Sevilla City, por todo lo argumentado, es un documental sincero y directo y muy recomendable, y en nuestras pantallas se antoja como el perfecto complemento a aquel celebrado Underground del pasado In-Edit que documentaba la subcultura Sevillana de los 70.

Sevilla City:

Moviemaker.com

1. Trust your script. It’s easy to fall in love with something that’s “set funny.” Trust the document that made you want to make the film, even if you wrote it yourself.

2. Make sure every scene has a beginning and ending. This could just mean someone closes a door behind them or puts down a telephone or enters frame. You don’t need to use it in editing, but more often than not, you’ll be happy to have it.

3. Be honest. Always ask yourself if the action/dialogue is honest and real to the situation and the characters. A funny line or a cool shot is not as important as preserving the tonal line of the film.

4. Be prepared. The morning of a shoot day, re-read the scene that precedes and follows the one you are shooting. It’s important to know where your characters just came from and where they are going.

5. Use a hard line on your headphones instead of a wireless set. You’ll hear the dialogue clearer, which is often a better way to measure a performance than watching it.

6. Don’t eat shellfish off the catering truck. Why chance it?

7. Relax. If you are lucky enough to be directing, your nightmares are other people’s dreams.

El neoyorquino Antonio Campos presenta ‘Afterschool’ como una «película abierta al espectador». El Comercio: “

Al director neoyorquino Antonio Campos le tocó ayer defender su ‘Afterschool’, su última película, casi como si su presencia tras los micrófonos fuera la de un experto en internet. Y todo porque esta historia hace inmersión en el gigantesco mundo de la red para hablar de las influencias del entorno, de la culpa del que observa y no interviene y del que consume aquello que critica. Y lo hace combinando las técnicas del vídeo y del cine, incluso de las grabaciones a través de los teléfonos móviles, arrojando por el medio del camino un discurso sobre la práctica cinematográfica que la descubre como un enemigo de la «perfección interpretativa». Así lo asumía ayer, antes de explicar que quiere dejar «abierta la película al espectador», para que cada cual interprete qué ha pasado, pues al final, también su producto es susceptible de una nueva reedición, como le pasa al protagonista de la película con el vídeo escolar.

Nanette Burstein Interview

Movie review: ‘American Teen’: “

The loveliest and most affecting character in a film so far this year is Hannah Bailey – and she’s a real person. She’s one of five Indiana high school students profiled in Nanette Burstein’s extraordinary study of senior year, “American Teen,” but Hannah is the one you end up loving and worrying about.

An artistically inclined teenager with a rebellious streak, Hannah is about to choose the course her life will take, and we see it all. We see it better than she can. On the one hand, she has all the radiant liveliness and sparkle that a human being could have, a vibrant energy that all but guarantees her a fantastic life. She’s witty. She embraces experience, and she knows, or at least strongly suspects, that in order not to feel like an oddball for the rest of her days, she needs to get out of Indiana – fast.

But she’s a kid, powerless and full of doubt. A romantic reversal leaves her emotionally crippled for two weeks, and she misses school. A relationship with a new boyfriend could easily derail her plan to move to San Francisco after graduation. Having lived nowhere but Warsaw, Ind., she can’t be sure if she feels strange because she doesn’t belong in this socially conservative environment, or because she’s simply weird. And as for her parents – they do everything they can to muscle their free-spirited child into a straitjacket of conformity.

Oh, what parents do to their kids. You see it over and over again in “American Teen,” and it’s enough to chill the blood. Take Megan Krizmanich, the social queen of the high school, the uber-Heather supreme. She’s rich, pretty and bossy, with a mean streak that’s not even a streak, but more like a wide stripe that goes from head to toe. Megan is about as lovable as Chucky from the “Child’s Play” series, and yet even she becomes a figure of sympathy when we see her stern father pressuring her to get into Notre Dame. After all, he went to Notre Dame, and that’s all there is to it.

And then there’s Colin Clemens. Great kid, affable and big-hearted, the star of the school’s basketball team. Colin’s father, who’s an Elvis impersonator, seems like a nice guy, too. But he keeps pressuring the kid to win a scholarship. Otherwise, “it’s the Army.” Later, he suggests “the Air Force.” Good move, Dad: There’s a war going on. Young people are getting blown up and maimed in Iraq, and he’s telling his son to join the military. Amazing.

But the worst – the most enraging, shocking, astounding and awful moment – comes when Hannah’s high-strung mother tells her daughter that she can’t move to San Francisco, that Hannah shouldn’t expect to get everything she wants out of life. And why? Three words: “You’re not special.” The night I saw this, the audience gasped. Everyone watching knows Hannah is special within 30 seconds, but her mother can’t tell after 18 years. At the movies in 2008, I’ve seen beheadings, dismemberments, multiple homicides and various generic acts of cruelty, but no screen depiction of injustice has landed with more force than those three words: “You’re not special.”

“American Teen” shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best narrative feature. There’s Jake Tusing, a classic geek, who has horrible acne and a mouthful of braces, and says the creepiest things: “There’s a lot of grease on the table now,” he tells a girl, “because I put my face on it.” Yet he has a great longing for romance – will he find it? And will Mitch Reinholt, a superficial jock who runs with the cool crowd, discover that he actually has a soul, kind of like Andrew McCarthy in “Pretty in Pink?” Stay tuned.

But the biggest suspense surrounds the fate of Hannah. At 18, she has the world before her, but does she know that enough to ignore the adults around her, who tell her that she’s nothing? Does she have the courage to face loneliness and become her best and truest self? Anyone in the audience can tell that Hannah has a light inside. But whether she uses it to burn bright or just consume herself will be decided before the movie is over. No, you really don’t want to be a kid again.

From YouTube to Borat: The Jackass Generation :by Dave Roos

I don’t remember how or why I got there, but the fact is I clicked. After two hours on YouTube, you’re no longer responsible for your actions. Something primal takes over. The ancient need for distraction–Man’s Search for Funny.

The clip was called Molly Grows Up and was typical YouTube: Two dudes dug up an old, public domain, black-and-white “health class” movie about a prototypical ’50s teen coming to grips with puberty. Then they dubbed over the original dialogue with the sort of pseudo-stoner banter everyone recognizes as “bored, ironic hipster.”

I admit it was pretty funny. I even watched all two-and-a-half minutes of it (an eternity on YouTube). Nothing terribly original, but the pace was fast, the jokes mildly crude and the message clear: Eat more Wendy’s!

Eat more Wendy’s?

It turns out the clip in question wasn’t the product of two dudes in a basement in Bethesda, but 20 suits in a Madison Avenue high-rise. (On second viewing, they did mention Wendy’s 99¢ Super Value Menu more than could be reasonably explained by the munchies…) The whole thing–three YouTube clips and an equally low-rent Website–was whipped up by a division of McCann-Erickson, one of the world’s biggest advertising firms.

It’s called “Astroturf,” explains Henry Jenkins, director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. “Fake grassroots media.” And its very existence begs an interesting question, says Jenkins. “What does it mean that we live in a world where very powerful players feel compelled to pass their work off as if it came from amateurs in order to get the attention that they think they might deserve?” It means that something strange has happened. Strange, but not entirely unexpected. Its influence is felt not only in advertising and marketing, but in every level of media and entertainment–from the lowest budget YouTuber to the most cash-bloated Hollywood movie studio.

The causes are many but the overall message is clear: If you want to reach this generation–especially if you want to make them laugh–keep it loose, keep it low-budget and keep it “real.”

Tom Lennon and Ben Garant have been doing their own weird thing for a long time. Original members of “The State” comedy troupe, the writing and acting duo also created “Viva Variety” for Comedy Central and “Reno 911!,” which is making the move to the big screen this February with Reno 911!: Miami. As smart and edgy as Lennon and Garant’s shows have been, nothing can make a couple of 35-year-olds sound like stale old greybeards faster than the subject of “Kids these days…”

The “Jackass” team, including Jason “Wee Man” Acuna and Johnny Knoxville, returns for Jeff Tremaine’s Jackass Number Two (2006)
“Kids are super smart and super critical and have a different type of aesthetic than we do,” says Garant, who plays dimwitted Deputy Travis Junior on “Reno 911!” “Kids that go to the movies these days never watched sitcoms. They see sitcom-scripted comedy and it feels like Shakespeare to them; it’s so artificial.”

When Garant talks about the “kids,” he’s referring to what we call “The Jackass Generation.” Raised on reality TV as the rule rather than the exception, they’ve been preconditioned to have, as Lennon puts it, “a very low tolerance for bullshit.” Dweebs like you and I may fall for the Wendy’s YouTube stunt, but not the Jackass Generation. The Molly Grows Up clip got a lot of hits, but just as many angry, anticorporate comments. The second and third clips Wendy’s uploaded simply sunk down into the digital dregs.

How Lennon and Garant get around the predictability of the traditional scripted sitcom or movie is, of course, to make up every line of dialogue as they go along. “The script for Reno 911!: Miami was really a 30-page outline,” says Lennon.

Obviously, they’re not the only ones in Hollywood to embrace improvisation. Will Ferrell and the “Frat Pack” crowd are famous for going “off book.” A movie like Ferrell’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, a Jackass Generation classic, is so packed with surreal comic moments one wonders if Ferrell and his writing partner, Adam McKay, even bothered with the outline. What the Frat Pack comedies do so well is use collective improvisation to sell the idea that here’s a group of friends–famous friends, sure, but regular guys at heart– who like to hang out, goof around and make each other laugh.

Seth Rogen, who had a small role in Anchorman, but starred alongside Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in The 40-Year- Old Virgin (which he also produced) and Owen Wilson in You, Me and Dupree, says audiences respond to that sort of comedy because it’s real. “That’s the most amazing part of the process. It really is fun and you really feel like you’re hanging out with your friends,” Rogen says.

Take the famous “Know how I know you’re gay?” scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where Rogen and Rudd question each other’s manhood during a PlayStation battle. “Paul Rudd and I actually are friends,” says Rogen. “When we’re talking it actually is just us trying to make each other laugh.” What does that mean for the Jackass Generation? It means that a kid like 21-year-old Dave Lehre in Washington, Michigan is encouraged to get together with his friends and do the exact same thing as the Ferrells, Carells and Rudds of the world–maybe even better.

Armed with cheap DV technology and fueled by abject boredom (“It’s either make movies or have some crazy house party in the woods,” says Lehre), Lehre and his buddies achieved YouTube stardom with MySpace, the Movie, a timely, satirical jab at the collective addiction of the Jackass Generation.

Garant and Lennon think that’s the biggest difference between themselves and the Jackass Generation. “When we were kids, there wasn’t a sense amongst us that ‘I could do better.’ We didn’ think that way,” says Garant. “Now they think, ‘Well, I’ll get a camera and I’ll put a skateboard on the roof and I can do better than “Reno 911!”‘” Maybe they’re right. Maybe they know something the rest of us don’t. Lehre signed a pilot deal with Fox (“The president of Fox’s son is a big fan of mine,” he explains) and just wrapped shooting in small-town Michigan. When he went out to L.A. to meet with studio execs, Lehre says, the suits were looking to him for advice.

“They’re trying to grasp onto something that’s taking flight faster than a rocket ship,” says Lehre. When he walked in and said he had a million hits on YouTube, they were flabbergasted. “‘How do you do it?’ they asked,” recalls Lehre. “Me and my friends just have fun. They’re like, ‘This doesn’ make any sense!’”

Mesh Flinders has been living with a 15- year-old girl in his head for longer than he’d care to remember. An aspiring moviemaker, Flinders has written “Bree” into three of his unproduced screenplays, but it took YouTube to bring her to life.

Flinders is the creator of LonelyGirl15, the teen video blogger whose cryptic Webcam diary continues to draw hundreds of thousands of hits–even after Bree was publicly unmasked as a professional actress.

What Flinders proved with the wild popularity of LonelyGirl15 is just how strong the lure of “reality” is to this generation. Even if they knew Bree was a little too good to be true, says Flinders, “People really wanted to believe in her.”

Sacha Baron Cohen and friend travel the country in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006).
Flinders credits some of the success of a movie like Borat to the fact that audiences buy into the moviemaker’s reality. “The audience is willing to suspend their disbelief, as long as you obey certain rules,” says Flinders. “Especially if you make it look like a documentary.”

The faux documentary technique is quickly becoming a staple of cutting-edge comedy. Jay Chandrasekhar, who writes for, acts in and directs all of the Broken Lizard comedies, including the cult hit Super Troopers and 2006’s Beerfest gained experience with the faux documentary style while directing a few episodes of “Arrested Development.”

“It just feels more naturalistic,” notes Chandrasekhar. “It feels more like real life. You get away with these jokes that are not really huge jokes on the page, and the audience is wondering, ‘Did they just make that up? Because that’s fucking brilliant.’”

“Reno 911!” is supposed to be a loose satire of “Cops,” so Garant and Lennon have always used a handheld camera to capture all the “real” action. But when they were filming the “Reno 911!” movie, they started second-guessing themselves, wondering if a “Cops” camera would go into people’s bedrooms and private conversations. But when they screened it, the audience didn’t blink. “It’s the way they expect to see things documented,” says Lennon. “A camera is seemingly always present.”

Aside from the obvious influence of reality TV, part of that expectation to see everything documented comes from the emerging YouTube “caught on tape” culture, says Jenkins. “We’ve all got cameras in our cell phones,” says Jenkins. When everyone everywhere has a camera all the time, everything’s fair game. “YouTube becomes an archival medium as a form of documenting culture.”

The other important quality of the faux documentary style is that it looks cheap. Jackass and Borat look and feel like do-it- yourself, guerilla moviemaking, even though they’re produced by major studies. For Jenkins, that makes Jackass and Borat prime examples of Hollywood “Astroturf.”

But like Flinders says, if the moviemakers play by all the rules and the audience buys into it, even the most expensive Astroturf can feel as real as the back yard. Broken Lizard’s Chandrasekhar is one of those audience members. “Borat is such an elegant movie in terms of [creating a reality],” he says. “What was written, what wasn’t, I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s just genius. They made it feel totally spontaneous.”

YouTube officially launched in December 2005. Less than a year later, Google bought it for $1.65 billion. How could such a simple idea–allowing people to post and share video clips–be so powerful?

“Every week we’re finding a new layer to what’s interesting about YouTube,” says Jenkins, whose most recent book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, explores, in part, how grassroots creativity affects mainstream media.

“Over the last decade or so, we’ve seen all this do-it-yourself media being made, but it’s all in these little niche corners of the Internet, where these groups are sort of hidden from each other,” says Jenkins. “Now they’re all thrown into YouTube as a sort of melting pot of grassroots creative expression and they’re learning stuff from each other very rapidly.”

In an article for Wired, Bob Garfield describes the ever-expanding YouTube community as the real-life equivalent of a million monkeys working at a million typewriters. What they’re coming up with certainly isn’t Shakespeare, but who cares?

Armed with cheap digital video technology and fueled by abject boredom, Dave Lehre and his buddies achieved YouTube stardom with MySpace, the Movie, a timely, satirical jab at the collective addiction of the Jackass Generation.
Think of YouTube as the world’s largest improv troupe. Just as all the great sketch comedians honed their skills and developed fresh ideas on the stages of “Saturday Night Live,” The Groundlings and Second City, the Jackass Generation is doing the same on YouTube, only to the 10th power. The comedy terrain shifts so quickly on YouTube (“old school” can mean last week), that the culture is continuously redefining “What’s funny this second.”

Jenkins provides an even more appropriate comparison: YouTube as 21st-century vaudeville. “Vaudeville was composed of very short acts, each very different material juxtaposed against each other,” explains Jenkins. “A lot of creative control in the hands of individual performers–a tendency to focus on shock, emotion, fascination with machinery and technological devices… bringing the world together on the same stage. In a sense, all of that describes YouTube very well.”

Of course, early Hollywood relied on a steady stream of performers who had made names for themselves on the vaudeville circuit. Not surprisingly, there has been tremendous buzz over studios possibly turning to YouTube for the next crop of fresh moviemakers.

“It’s kind of like the 1970s again,” says LonelyGirl15 creator Flinders, “when the cultural revolution took place and the studios went and hired all these ‘Young Turk’ filmmakers–Scorsese, Fellini, Coppola– and let them come in and help with big studio pictures. Hopefully that’s going to happen now.”

Flinders, who describes himself as a moviemaker, says he’s ready to make the transition from the Internet to the big screen. “People like me, who have done stuff on YouTube, are getting representation and getting in a door that wasn’t open less than even a year ago,” he says.

Tom Nunan, a film and TV producer (Crash, The Illusionist) who also teaches a combined course at UCLA for graduate film students and MBA candidates, says if your goal is to eventually make a lot of money in the mainstream, YouTube is a completely viable auditioning platform.

“All of the broadcast and cable networks are all over YouTube, trolling for new voices and new talent. It is absolutely a legitimate space for new filmmakers–or old filmmakers who want to reinvent themselves to prove their ground,” says Nunan. “People use it in pitches: ‘I’ve received 75,000 hits.’ And why wouldn’t they?”

Joe Bereta and Luke Barats just signed a pilot deal with NBC after their sketch comedy clips blew up on YouTube (Variety recently included the duo in their 2006 Comedy Impact List). Barats doesn’t think he and Bereta possess unusual talent, it’s just that YouTube has given them the distribution method to get their stuff out there.

“We”re young writers who have gotten a chance to see their stuff produced because we did it ourselves,” says Barats. “I think that’s the reason we’re in the room as opposed to some other young writer who hasn’t gotten his stuff exposed quite as much.”

For film critic and historian (and MovieMaker writer) Joe Leydon, the cross-pollination of Hollywood and YouTube is only natural. He calls the DIY clips on YouTube “the cinematic equivalent of garage band recordings. Just as there will be elements of garage bands that will be incorporated into mainstream music, there will also be garage bands signed to recording contracts with major labels,” says Leydon.

“I’m sure that some of the people who will be releasing summer comedies in 2008 are making little comedy shorts for display right now on YouTube.”

Lennon jokes that Reno 911!: Miami is really nothing more than big screen YouTube. “It’s shot with handheld video, sometimes it’s out of focus and every three minutes something either very violent or very sexy happens, which is generally exactly what YouTube is,” says Lennon. “I don’t know if we would admit that or are aware of it, but we’re certainly doing it.”

© 2008 MovieMaker Magazine